The Japanese government on Saturday declared a state of emergency in six areas, including the capital city of Tokyo, after seeing a record spike in coronavirus cases.

Japan PM’s Office quoted PM Suga as saying, “For the period until August 31, we have decided to apply the declaration of a state of emergency to Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Osaka, and Okinawa Prefectures, and to apply priority measures to prevent the spread of disease to Hokkaido, Ishikawa, Kyoto, Hyogo, and Fukuoka Prefectures.”

The Japanese government requested the people to refrain from going out or traveling for non-essential, non-urgent reasons, and to be as careful and restrained as possible regarding returning to their hometowns during the summer and other travel.

The government further announced that it will now focus on administering vaccines to people in the younger generation, with the aim of having more than 40 percent of the public finish receiving their second dose by roughly the last week of August.

In addition, the govt will actively offer to patients with mild cases over 50 years old and others a “revolutionary” pharmaceutical treatment that slashes the risk of developing severe symptoms by 70 percent.

“We will continue to do everything in our capacity to implement measures to prevent infections and administer vaccines,” it added.

The average number of new daily cases globally jumped by 10 percent over the last week, according to an AFP tally, largely due to the highly contagious Delta variant, after slowing between late April and mid-June.

While the Asia-Pacific region has been hard-hit — with Vietnam and Japan recording a 61 percent jump in daily cases — Western countries are also facing surges, with the US and Canada seeing 57 percent more infections.