Here are the latest COVID-19 updates from Japan and beyond:
Nurses in protective wear check a COVID-19 patient's condition on a monitor at Tokyo's Juntendo University Hospital on Aug. 6, 2021. (Kyodo)
As of 11 p.m., Friday, Aug. 13
- International Paralympic Committee chief Andrew Parsons released Friday a statement warning against complacency toward a steep rise in coronavirus cases in Tokyo.
- A woman infected in Japan's first case of the Lambda coronavirus variant has been identified as a person associated with the Tokyo Olympics, government sources said Friday.
- Daily coronavirus cases confirmed in Tokyo hit a record 5,773 Friday, topping the previous high of 5,042 logged a week earlier, government data showed, reinforcing fears of a collapse of the capital's medical system due to the resurgence of the virus.
- Some Australian athletes will be forced to undergo a total of 28 days in quarantine after returning from the Tokyo Olympic Games, due to changing state border restrictions amid outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta strain across Australia.
- The number of COVID-19 patients with severe symptoms in Japan hit a record 1,478 on Thursday, the health ministry said Friday, as the country grapples with an alarming rise in coronavirus infections amid the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.
- Ninety percent of major Japanese companies expect the country's economy to expand in 2022 on hopes that the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will subside, a Kyodo News survey showed Thursday.
As of 10 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 12
- The organizers of the Tokyo Paralympics are looking into holding competitions without spectators at most venues, as was the case with the Olympics, due to surging COVID-19 cases in the Japanese capital, several officials familiar with the matter said Thursday.
- After an Olympics plagued by coronavirus concerns and preceded by a scandal that forced the Tokyo Games' organizing committee to resign over sexist comments, Takashi Kawamura, the 72-year-old mayor of the central Japan metropolis, is under fire for flouting coronavirus protocols and making inappropriate comments to a 20-year-old woman softball champion.
- New Zealand will cautiously begin reopening its borders early next year, with quarantine-free entry permitted for fully vaccinated travelers from low-risk countries, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Thursday.
- Infectious disease experts on Thursday called for the need to cut foot traffic in Tokyo by half from the level in early July, with the capital seeing an alarming rise in coronavirus infections.
- Flame-lighting events for the Tokyo Paralympic torch relay began across Japan on Thursday in the lead up to the world's biggest sporting event for athletes with disabilities, despite the relay being scaled down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- The number of foreign students in Japan as of May 2020 fell 10.4 percent from a year earlier to 279,597, a survey showed, as the coronavirus pandemic forced some students to cancel or postpone their study plans.
- Surging raw material costs have become another headache for Japanese companies emerging from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic.
Japan and beyond: Week in Photos - Aug 7 ~ 13
People wearing face masks walk in Tokyo's Shibuya area on Aug. 12, 2021, as the capital reported 4,989 new coronavirus cases the same day, the second highest figure after 5,042 infections logged a week earlier. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo
Useful resources for foreign residents and visitors in Japan
- Tokyo Metropolitan Government's "Tokyo Coronavirus Support Center for Foreign Residents (TOCOS)" multilingual hotline
- Available in Simple Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Nepali, Indonesian, Tagalog, Thai, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Khmer, and Burmese, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays except national holidays.
0120-296-004 (toll free)
https://www.seikatubunka.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/chiiki_tabunka/tabunka/tabunkasuishin/0000001452.html - AMDA Medical Information Center's "Multilingual Consultation Service"
- Available in Simple Japanese and English, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. Also available in Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese on designated weekdays. Check schedule here.
03-6233-9266 - Tokyo Metropolitan Government's COVID-19 info
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ - Tokyo Metropolitan Government hotline
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/contacts
- Available in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. (including weekends and holidays)
0570-550571
- Available via fax for those with hearing impairments
03-5388-1396 - Japan National Tourism Organization's "Guide for when you are feeling ill"
- Multilingual clinic/hospital search available in English, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese
https://www.jnto.go.jp/emergency/eng/mi_guide.html - JNTO's "Japan Visitor Hotline"
https://www.japan.travel/en/plan/hotline/
- Available in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese 24 hours a day
050-3816-2787
+81-50-3816-2787 (from overseas) - Japan's health ministry hotline
- Available in Japanese only, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
0120-565653 - World Health Organization's "Q&A on coronaviruses"
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
