This illustration, created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. (Alissa Eckert, MSMI; Dan Higgins, MAMS. Provided by Center for Disease Control and Prevention)
A total of 271 COVID-19 cases involving variants of the novel coronavirus had been confirmed around Japan as of March 9, more than quadruple the figure from a month earlier, the health ministry said.
The cases had been reported in 21 prefectures, including Tokyo, ministry officials said March 10.
The ministry confirmed the number and the variants by collecting cases that the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) and other institutions conducted genomic analyses on.
Shigeru Omi, head of the government advisory panel on the coronavirus pandemic, speaks at a session of the Lower House Committee on Health, Labor and Welfare, on Dec. 9. Seen to his right is welfare minister Norihisa Tamura. (Kotaro Ebara)
The chief of a government expert panel on the novel coronavirus said the Go To Travel program should be suspended in large cities where the situation has reached the second most serious level.
Those urban centers would include Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Sapporo.
Countering the policies of the Suga administration, panel leader Shigeru Omi, an infectious disease expert, said on Dec. 9 that all people in those cities, not just senior citizens, should minimize their movements and contact with others.