July 21

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported 20,401 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday.

The daily tally in the capital city exceeded 20,000 for the first time since February 5.

The figure is up 3,523 from a week ago.

The number of seriously ill patients on ventilators or ECMO heart-lung machines in Tokyo is 18, down one from Tuesday.

A total of 152,536 cases were registered nationwide on Wednesday. That exceeds the previous daily record of more than 110,000 marked last Saturday.

A total of 30 prefectures across Japan are also logging record high new infections.

Osaka Prefecture confirmed 21,976 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. The figure is the highest ever in the prefecture and the first time it exceeded 20,000.

Wednesday's tally is 2.1 times from a week earlier.

Okinawa Prefecture reported a record 5,160 new infections, surpassing the previous record of 4,165 marked on Sunday by about 1,000.

The total number of cases in Okinawa since the beginning of the pandemic has broken through 300,000, which is equivalent to roughly 20 percent of Okinawa's population of about 1.46 million.

Miyagi Prefecture reported 2,094 new cases on Wednesday. That is more than double the figure of a week ago and much higher than the previous record of 958 shown last Saturday.

NHK