TOKYO: A total of 250 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Tokyo on Thursday, with cumulative infection cases in the Japanese capital reaching 20,096, the metropolitan government said.

The cumulative number of infections in Tokyo topped 20,000 only about a month after exceeding 10,000 on July 22, about six months after the confirmation of the first case on Jan. 24.

The daily number topped 200 for the second straight day. Those in their 20s to 30s accounted for about half of Thursday’s total, while infection routes are unknown for 149 cases, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government. The number of severely ill patients stood at 31 as of the day, unchanged from Wednesday.

Tokyo’s daily count of novel coronavirus cases once started to decline after hitting a peak at 206 on April 17, when the central government’s state of emergency over the epidemic was in place. But it started increasing again in mid-June, after the state of emergency was lifted in late May. The daily figure has been on a gradual downtrend after marking a record high of 472 on Aug. 1.

On Thursday, the nationwide count of confirmed cases stood at 863, below 1,000 for the sixth consecutive day. Infections were found in 38 of the country’s 47 prefectures and at airport quarantine stations.

The number of deaths for the day stood at 10, reported in prefectures including Ishikawa, central Japan.

Fukui Prefecture, adjacent to Ishikawa, confirmed 13 new cases of the novel coronavirus, its highest daily total. Of the total, eight people were customers of a cafe with karaoke services in the city of Fukui, the capital of the prefecture, bringing the total number of infection cases related to the store to 10. The prefecture believes the cafe to be a site of an infection cluster.

JIJI Press