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Alarming rise in new Covid-19 cases: Japan 105,584 (Tokyo 17,790)

By on July 18, 2022

As COVID-19 cases continue to spread across Japan over the last several weeks, Japan’s National Institute for Infectious Diseases predicted Thursday that the Omicron BA.5 strain will be responsible for  50% of the total new infections nationwide this week.

New Covid subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 spread faster than earlier variants and are good at evading immunity which means earlier vaccines and booster are unlikely to offer you protection. They are more similar to BA.2 than to the BA.1 strain that kicked off most countries’ Omicron waves late last year. BA.4 and BA.5 carry their own unique mutations, including changes called L452R and F486V in the viral spike protein that might tweak its ability to latch onto host cells and BA.4 and BA.5’s rise seems to stem from their ability to infect people who were immune to earlier lineages.

The number of new Covid-19 cases in Japan peaked to 105,584 as of Sunday, marking the third consecutive day with over 100,000 new cases.

Across the country, 129 people were severely ill from the coronavirus disease, up by 15 from the previous day, and 17 new fatalities were reported among patients.

In Tokyo, the metropolitan government reported 17,790 new infections, with the daily count rising about 1.9-fold week on week and exceeding 10,000 for the sixth consecutive day.

The Japanese capital logged one new COVID-19 death on the day,  and 13 severely ill patients.

The seven-day moving average of new infections in Tokyo has now jumped to 102.3 percent compared to the previous 15,292.9.

 

 

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