Photo/Illutration The Asakusa Shigetu ryokan in Tokyo’s Asakusa district is facing hard times with no foreign guests due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Wataru Sekita)

Tokyo confirmed 256 novel coronavirus infections on March 21, or 17 more than on the previous Sunday.

Average cases per day over the week through March 21 came to 301.1, representing an increase of 7.9 percent from the preceding week, metropolitan health officials said.

Serious COVID-19 cases where patients require ventilators or an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) device, which circulates blood through an artificial lung, stood at 47, the same as the day before.

Of the newly confirmed infections, 52 patients were in their 20s, followed by 41 in their 50s and 31 in their 40s. Sixty-eight patients were aged 65 or older.

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