THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
December 25, 2021 at 18:00 JST
A motorcyclist sporting festive clothing rides through the upscale Ginza district in Tokyo on Dec. 25. (AP Photo)
Tokyo marked 38 fresh cases of COVID-19 on Dec. 25, continuing an upward trend, while Fukuoka prefectural government officials on the main southern island of Kyushu reported what likely constitutes the first instance of community infection of the Omicron variant.
The latest tally in Tokyo represented an increase of 10 over the previous Saturday and the eighth straight day for the number of new cases to exceed that of the previous week.
For the week ending Dec. 25, the daily average of new cases came to 33.7, an increase of 56 percent over the average of the previous week.
Two patients had symptoms serious enough to warrant the use of a ventilator or other equipment to breathe. The figure was unchanged from the previous day.
The outbreak of the Omicron variant made Fukuoka the fourth prefecture with an untraceable case of the strain in an individual who has not been overseas.
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