Nov 06 (NHK) - Japan confirmed 1,024 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, with a daily count exceeding 1,000 for the first time since late August.
This brings the cumulative total of confirmed cases in the country to 105,770 including 712 on a cruise ship. The cumulative total of confirmed deaths reached 1,816 including 13 on the cruise ship.
One region of particular concern is Hokkaido, Japan's northern-most prefecture, where there has been a spike in new cases recently.
A daily count in Hokkaido on Thursday surpassed 100 for the first time, to 119. The prefecture's major city of Sapporo accounts for the majority of the cases at 93, which is a record high for the city.
On October 28, the Hokkaido Prefectural Government raised its coronavirus alert by one notch to Level 2, and started a two-week period of intensive efforts to stop the spread of the virus through restrictive measures.
But the number of confirmed cases in Hokkaido has kept rising, and as of Thursday, some of the benchmarks used to evaluate the situation, such as hospital bed occupancy, weekly number of new cases, and percentage of untraceable cases, have exceeded levels that would require raising the alert further to Level 3.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu told a news conference on Thursday that he has heard from Hokkaido officials that several clusters of infections have been reported mainly in Sapporo's entertainment district.
He said that the healthcare system in Hokkaido is currently not under strain, with bed occupancy rate at around 12 percent, but it could come under pressure soon.
He said the Health Ministry has sent two specialists on cluster infections to Hokkaido to offer advice in evaluating the situation and in coming up with measures to stop the further spread of the virus.
