WORLD

Gov’t adds 4 other areas under emergency through Aug. 31

Halfway through the Summer Olympics in Japan, COVID-19 cases are surging in the nation during a state of emergency though the outbreak is nowhere near as severe as other places in the world.

Halfway through the Summer Olympics in Japan, coronavirus cases are surging in the nation during a state of emergency though the outbreak is nowhere near as severe as other places in the world.

On the 10th day of the Olympics, Japan announced five additional deaths and 10,177 cases, compared with four fatalities and 5,020 infections one week earlier. In one week Japan’s total cases have risen 87 percent to 937,293, which is 33rd in the world. Deaths have gone up 68 down 24 percent from the previous week, to a total of 15,211, ranking 37th globally.

Japan has 7,344 infections per million compared with the world at 25,495, the United States at 107,311, Britain at 85,783 and Indonesia at 12,436. For fatalities, Japan is at 121 fatalities per million compared with the world at 543.5, the United States at 1,889, Britain at 1,899, Indonesia at 346.

On Saturday, Japan set a national cases record with 12,341.

The nation’s daily records are 148 deaths on May 7. Until recently the cases record was 7,568 on Jan. 7.

The Japanese government on Friday extended a state of emergency in Tokyo and made the declaration for four additional prefectures due to spiking COVID-19 cases, aided by he Delta variant.

The new emergency declarations cover the capital and Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Okinawa and Osaka prefectures and run through Aug. 31.

Tokyo and Okinawa had already been under states of emergency.

In Tokyo, where most of the events are taking place and a population of 12.5 million, 3,058 cases were reported Sunday compared with 1,763 seven days earlier and 1,008 two weeks ago. On Saturday, there were a record 4,058 infections.

Japan has relatively low vaccination and testing rates.

The vaccination rate is 33.3 percent of the population with at least one vaccine dose, up 2 percentage points in a week and 27.6 percent totally vaccinated, nearly a gain of 4 percentage points.

In testing, Japan’s rate is only 146,550 per million compared with the United States at 1.6 million per million.

All Olympic athletes and personnel are tested frequently with 169,095 performed through Friday. The positivity rate among athletes and other personnel is 0.02 percent with more than 300,000 tested conducted, organizers said Friday.

The total number of Games-related cases is 241, according to organizers.

Safety protocols including requiring athletes to wear masks when they are not competing, including on the medal stand except for brief moments, are being used at the Olympics.