THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
April 8, 2020 at 17:01 JST
Almost all commuters wear facial masks at Shinagawa Station in Tokyo’s Minato Ward on April 8 (Rei Kishitsu)
Japan added 361 new coronavirus cases on April 7, pushing the national total over the 5,000 mark.
The total figure reached 5,179 cases of people infected with COVID-19, with 109 deaths from the virus.
Governments across seven prefectures where a state of emergency is in effect reported 224 new coronavirus cases, making up the bulk of new infections.
The seven areas, including Tokyo and Osaka Prefecture, account for 60 percent of the total number of new confirmed infections.
That is all according to data collected as of 11 p.m. April 7, with totals including figures from cruise ship cases.
Tokyo reported 80 new cases April 7. That is actually a relatively low daily number for Tokyo compared with the past week, where some days it surpassed 100 cases. Tokyo remains the area with the highest number of infected patients, now at 1,195 cases in total.
Chiba Prefecture, which has the second highest number of infected patients in the Tokyo metropolitan area, reported that 13 more people tested positive. Another two people associated with Hokuso Ikusei-en, a facility for people with intellectual disabilities, have been confirmed infected, pushing the number of cases linked to it to 110.
Kanagawa and Saitama prefectures reported 18 and 17 new cases, respectively.
Osaka Prefecture confirmed 53 new cases--its highest number yet in a single day. Its total case number reached 481.
Hyogo and Fukuoka prefectures saw 20 and 23 infected cases, respectively.
The number of people confirmed to have coronavirus is also increasing outside of the seven prefectures now under a state of the emergency.
In Okinawa Prefecture, 12 people tested positive--the first time more than 10 cases were confirmed in a day. In seven cases, it was not clear how the individuals contracted the virus. The prefecture now has 35 cases in total.
Aichi and Kyoto prefectures added 21 and 12 cases, respectively, while Ishikawa and Gifu prefectures each added 10.
Some teenagers and twentysomethings who returned from metropolitan areas to their hometowns in Shizuoka and Niigata prefectures tested positive for the virus.
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