Photo/Illutration A health care worker with a COVID-19 patient in serious condition at Nozaki Tokushukai Hospital in Daito, Osaka Prefecture, on May 7. Part of the image is modified for privacy. (Takefumi Horinouchi)

Only 15 days into May, Osaka Prefecture reported a record 487 deaths from COVID-19 for any month.

Surging numbers of novel coronavirus infection have stretched the prefecture's health care system to the limit and few rooms are available for new patients.

An Asahi Shimbun tally shows that the death toll in the prefecture accounts for more than 20 percent of the nation’s overall fatalities since March. The prefecture has been in the grip of a fourth wave of infections that started in March, local authorities say.

From April, accumulative deaths in the prefecture represented more than 30 percent of all fatalities across the nation.

Since the middle of February, daily deaths from COVID19 had remained below double digits in Osaka Prefecture.

But the toll began spiking sharply from late April.

In May, more than 15 deaths were logged per day. Then on May 11, the prefecture reported 55 deaths, a record for a single 24-hour period.

Deaths from COVID-19 around the nation since March 1 stood at 3,403 as of May 13.

With 751 fatalities, Osaka Prefecture accounted for 22.1 percent of the national total.

The figure rises to 32.2 percent if overall deaths since April 1 are taken into account.

The average age of patients who died from the third wave of infections from Oct. 10 to late February was 78.0, prefectural officials said.

Of these deaths, 98.1 percent of the patients were aged 60 or older.

But in the current fourth wave, the average age of fatal cases dropped to 75.2 due to a sharp increase in the number of patients in their 50s or younger who succumbed to the disease. The ratio of patients in their 60s or older who died came to 93.1 percent.

Prefectural officials attribute the growing death toll to the steep rise in new cases.

Between April 13 and May 2, daily new cases topped 1,000 except for April 19 and April 26.

The ratio of deaths among COVID-19 patients during the fourth wave stands at 1.0 percent, compared with 2.6 percent during the third wave.

However, the number of deaths surged in conjunction with the sharp rise in new infections.

Prefectural officials say they believe a variant, called B.1.1.7, which was first identified in Britain late last year triggered the fourth wave. This mutant is more contagious and more likely to result in death, according to reports from overseas.

The pace of rise in the number of serious cases grew about three-fold from the third wave of infections in the prefecture, leaving hospitals with few unoccupied beds.

As of May 12, the number of patients who have been hospitalized represented only 10 percent of people who tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the prefecture. About 15,000 people were staying at home without medical care at hospitals as of May 15.

Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura warned that fatalities could surge in coming weeks, given the high number of patients denied access to care at hospitals.

(This article was written by Yuki Kubota and Takahiro Takenouchi.)

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