An advisory body to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has said the number of people newly infected with the novel coronavirus nationwide continues to decline, but that cases have once again begun to climb in Tokyo and other areas.
Infections among people in their 20s are particularly high in the capital, and "there are strong concerns that infections will spread again," the advisory body said Wednesday.
New infections in Okinawa, the only prefecture where a state of emergency has not yet been lifted, have dropped to one-third of the peak earlier this month. The advisory body predicted that this downward trend will continue, but that a close watch should be kept, as crowds are increasing both during the day and at night.
In Tokyo, the number of newly infected people had been level for about three weeks, but in the week to Tuesday, it was up 8% from the previous seven-day period. The advisory body called for the further strengthening of measures such as curbing how many people go out.
About 90% of health care workers have received two doses of vaccine, it was reported at the Wednesday meeting of the advisory body.
"Steady progress in vaccinations has led to a decrease in new infections among healthcare workers and mass infections at medical institutions," said Takaji Wakita, director general of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and the chair of the advisory body.
According to the ministry, 153 cases of Indian variants, such as the Delta variant, which are considered highly infectious, had been confirmed in 13 prefectures as of Monday. This was an increase of 36 from the previous week.
The government tested a sampling from about 13,000 newly infected people between June 7 and 13 to ascertain the current situation, and found that about 3% of them had an Indian variant.
-- Suga expresses concern
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga held a meeting of ministers concerned with the novel coronavirus on Wednesday.
Suga instructed the ministers to pay attention to the resurgence in infections, pointing out that the number of newly infected people in the Tokyo metropolitan area seems to have stopped declining.
"Especially in Tokyo, the number of infected people has increased by about 10% in the past week [compared to the previous week]," the prime minister said.
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