Photo/Illutration An electron microscope image of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus (Provided by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases)

Public health experts are warning that new COVID-19 cases will likely continue to set record highs across Japan amid the current surge in infections.

Nationwide, 186,246 new cases were reported as of 8 p.m. on July 21, breaking the previous single-day record for the second straight day.

The health ministry’s expert advisory panel on the pandemic met the same day and vowed to continue to vigilantly monitor the situation. But the central government does not plan to impose hefty restrictions on the public to curtail the spread of the virus.

“We are not considering implementing new anti-virus measures to restrict people’s movements at this point,” health minister Shigeyuki Goto said at the panel meeting.

He said the government intends to make more hospital beds available for COVID-19 patients and to set up makeshift facilities to treat them, while quickly distributing the fourth novel coronavirus vaccine shots to health care workers and staff at elderly care facilities.

But some experts argued it is time to impose strict restrictions to curb the flow of people, given the recent spike in new infections and its expected repercussions.

Tokyo confirmed 31,878 new COVID-19 cases on July 21, the first time the single-day figure topped 30,000 in the capital.

The daily count hit record highs in 35 of the nation's 47 prefectures the same day, an Asahi Shimbun tally showed.

According to the panel, the number of new infections across Japan over the week through July 20 was 1.72 times more than the week before. The daily count rose week on week in all prefectures.

The panel predicts new cases will continue increasing in many regions since the effective reproduction number, which shows how many people one COVID-19 patient will infect, is 1.23.

The explosive growth in infections is partly attributed to the recent spread of the highly contagious BA.5 Omicron subvariant.

The BA.5 subvariant was detected in an estimated 96 percent of samples taken from COVID-19 patients this week, according to data from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases presented at the panel meeting.

(This article was written by Yoshinori Hayashi and Kai Ichino.)

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