TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2020) Japan and its sprawling capital Tokyo on Saturday both set new records in daily increases in COVID-19 cases with 2,560 and 539 infections respectively, media reported citing health authorities.
According to public broadcaster NHK, the Osaka prefecture also registered a record high of 415 new cases in the past 24 hours.
This takes the total number of cases across the country to over 131,000 cases overall since the beginning of the pandemic, while seven deaths over the past day take the death toll to 1,976.
This makes Saturday the third consecutive day of a record rise in cases in both the country and the capital city.
A day prior, both Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu and Tokyo Governor Yoriko Koike, as well as a number of top officials, called on Japanese citizens to remain vigilant and avoid traveling over the upcoming three-day weekend. Japan celebrates its Labor Day on November 23.
Few in the country appear to have heeded that call, as the main highways leading out of Tokyo have been awash with traffic jams 10 to 15 miles long, Sputnik's Japan correspondent reported.
Elsewhere, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at a cabinet meeting on Saturday ordered to suspend government support for internal tourism to prefectures showing high numbers of COVID-19 cases, NHK reported.
