Cases of COVID-19 are on the rise in parts of Japan. That includes Okinawa — and the country’s largest city: Tokyo.
Late last week, Tokyo’s metropolitan government raised its alert level for new coronavirus cases.
Officials bumped up the ranking to the second-highest of four levels because of a steep rise in new cases.
Cases have been going up for the last two weeks — and health officials say that people under the age of 30 are a growing part of those infections.
Cases have also been increasing in Okinawa — and in both locations, some patients are not vaccinated, while others have not had booster shots.
Health officials say the highly contagious BA.5 substrain of the virus represents a growing number of cases in Japan — now making up about a quarter of new cases in Tokyo.
And there’s another complication: high temperatures that continue to linger across parts of the country — including the national capital.
Late last week, temperatures in Tokyo reached nearly 98 degrees — the hottest readings for June since records started being kept in 1875.
That’s a potential complication for health care.
The vice chair of the Tokyo Medical Association told Kyodo News that a rapid increase in heatstroke patients could become a strain on emergency medical services — which could affect the ability of hospitals to accept COVID 19 patients.
