Japan's daily COVID-19 cases hit record for 2nd straight day

Japan on Thursday reported 233,100 new daily COVID-19 cases, marking a new record for a second straight day, as the highly transmissible BA.5 Omicron subvariant continues to run rampant.

Tokyo alone confirmed a record 40,406 new infections, topping the 40,000-mark for the first time, with the number of cases jumping 8,500 from a week earlier. Officials said the health system was becoming overstretched.

The case count has topped the number of the previous week for nine consecutive days, the official figure showed.

As the pandemic here shows no signs of waning, the World Health Organization said that Japan reported the world's highest number of new cases in the week to Sunday, with more than 969,000 infections.