THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
February 18, 2022 at 18:59 JST
People walk down a side street in the Tokyo entertainment district Kabukicho on Feb. 17. (AP Photo)
Tokyo logged 16,129 new COVID-19 cases on Feb. 18, 2,531 fewer than the previous Friday, metropolitan health officials said.
It marked the 10th straight day of cases declining from the same day the previous week in Tokyo.
The latest figure brought the daily average of new cases over the week through Feb. 18 in the capital to 14,574.6, representing 82.4 percent of the figure for the preceding week.
Tokyo officials also reported 26 deaths linked to COVID-19. The 26 people were men or women in their 30s to 90s. The number of deaths was the highest in a single day since January.
Of the 16,129 new cases, 613 were diagnosed with COVID-19 by doctors without undergoing tests. The age group with the highest number of new cases was people in their 40s with 2,916 cases, followed by 2,778 cases among people in their 30s and 2,436 cases of those in their 20s.
There were 2,398 new cases among children under the age of 10. For youths aged 10 to 19, there were 1,907 new cases reported, as well as 1,632 cases among patients aged 65 or older.
The occupancy rate of hospital beds set aside for COVID-19 patients in the capital stood at 59.5 percent as of Feb. 18.
The occupancy rate of hospital beds designated for seriously ill coronavirus patients was 32.7 percent on Feb. 17. The Tokyo metropolitan government has decided that it would consider asking the central government to declare a state of emergency for the capital if this rate reaches 30 to 40 percent.
The number of serious cases dropped by one from the previous day to 80. The Tokyo metropolitan government defines patients in serious condition as those requiring ventilators or ECMO heart-lung bypass machines.
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