Japan reported 233,100 daily coronavirus cases on Thursday, hitting a record for the second consecutive day, raising concern about the strain on the medical system as the number of available designated hospital beds continues to decline.

Tokyo reported a record 40,406 infections, surpassing 40,000 for the first time as the country battles its seventh wave of the coronavirus pandemic driven by the highly transmissible BA.5 Omicron subvariant.

The logging of record infections in many areas came after the World Health Organization said Japan had reported the world's highest number of new cases in the week to Sunday with more than 969,000.

Tokyo's new all-time high, which exceeded its previous record of 34,995 reported on Friday, is believed to include around 5,000 to 6,000 cases from Wednesday that could not be logged due to a system error.

With the majority of infections among people in their 20s, the capital's seven-day rolling average of new cases stood at 31,318.1 per day, up 66.4% from the previous week.

Source: ANNnewsCH