Photo/Illutration Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike at her July 2 news conference urges caution about visiting "nighttime districts." (Takuya Isayama)

The triple-digit number of new COVID-19 cases shocked Tokyo metropolitan government officials but not enough for them to consider asking businesses to curtail operating hours again.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike did hold a hastily called news conference after 107 new infections were confirmed in the capital on July 2. But she said she would not seek a return to the reduced business activity that was seen during the now-lifted state of emergency.

“Rather than target the entire Tokyo area, we will issue clear messages directed at specific districts, age groups and business sectors,” she said.

The governor noted some disturbing trends in the latest cases and called on local residents to be on their guard about a possible further spread in infections.

The metropolitan government on July 1 started using new guidelines for issuing a special alert that are based more on the capacity of the health care system than on numerical targets.

“While we have secured an adequate medical care structure, we also cannot deny the possibility of a sharp increase in infections through the spread of the virus to elderly residents who are at risk of developing more serious symptoms,” Koike said.

Norio Omagari, director of the Disease Control and Prevention Center under the National Center for Global Health and Medicine who is a member of the metropolitan government’s panel of experts, attended the same news conference.

“There is the possibility that infections are spreading in the community,” he said.

Omagari cited the larger number of individuals whose infection route is untraceable. He added that one reason behind the surge in new infections is that more people are requesting polymerase chain reaction tests to determine if they have COVID-19.

The expert panel said the daily average of nontraceable infections was 27.1 for the latest week, up 1.58-fold over the previous week.

Metropolitan government officials said about 70 percent of the 457 COVID-19 cases over the week ending July 2 were individuals between 20 and 40.

Members of the panel said younger infected individuals often do not develop serious symptoms, and they may not realize they are passing on the virus to elderly individuals.

After the July 2 figure for Tokyo was released, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at his own news conference that the central government was not thinking about declaring another state of emergency.

However, the recent spike in new infections in Tokyo could alter the central government’s plans to gradually relax restrictions on events.

July 10 had been set as the next date for announcing whether such restrictions would be eased. But Yasutoshi Nishimura, the state minister in charge of economic revitalization who is also overseeing measures to fight the novel coronavirus epidemic, said at a July 2 news conference that no decision on the issue could be made at the moment.

The situation within the medical care structure is clearly not as severe as it was in April, when the state of emergency was announced.

At that time, new COVID-19 infections in Tokyo were spread out over all age groups, with 36 percent of patients between 20 and 40, and 28 percent aged 60 and older.

In June, only about 10 percent of the new infections in the capital were of individuals 60 and older, while 70 percent were of those between 20 and 40.

Tokyo metropolitan government officials said only nine infected individuals in Tokyo reported having serious symptoms as of July 2.

A total of 296 infected individuals in Tokyo were in hospitals on July 2, compared with more than 1,000 until mid-May.

But the problem of rising numbers of COVID-19 cases may not be limited to the capital.

There were a total of 195 new COVID-19 infections around Japan as of 9 p.m. on July 2, a 1.5-fold increase over the previous day.

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