Health News at Your Fingertips

Tokyo has reported 3,177 new coronavirus cases, setting an all-time high and surpassing 3,000 for the first time days into the Olympic Games.

Experts say the surge is being driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.

The new cases surpassed the earlier record of 2,848 set the previous day. There have been 206,745 cases in the city since the onset of the pandemic.

The Japanese capital has been under a fourth state of emergency since 12 July ahead of the Olympics, which began last Friday despite widespread public opposition.

Russia has reported a further 22,420 coronavirus cases as the country battles a wave attributed largely to the highly contagious Delta variant as well as a slow rate vaccine rollout.

Wednesday’s figures take the official national tally to 6,195,232, Reuters reports.

The government coronavirus task force said 798 people had died of coronavirus-related causes in the past 24 hours, pushing the national death toll to 156,178. A death toll of almost double, at around 290,000, is reported by the federal statistics agency, which has kept a separate count.

Boris Johnson has rejected Michael Gove’s remarks that people who turn down a vaccine are “selfish”.

Asked about the Cabinet Office minister’s comments this morning, Labour deputy Angela Rayner and Therese Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, also refused to support Gove’s claim.

Police in Malaysia are investigating an an alleged breach of coronavirus restrictions after a customer went to extraordinary lengths to order a takeaway, sending a helicopter more than 100 miles across the country to pick up their meal.

The aircraft landed in Ipoh city to collect 36 portions of a rice popularly known as “nasi ganja” and returned to Kuala Lumpur, 180 kilometres (110 miles) away, according to Reuters.

The country is under lockdown, with people chiefly remaining at home and travel between states banned except in exceptional circumstances.

Police say the helicopter had been given permission to fly outside the capital but only for maintenance, not to collect food. Prosecutors will decide whether to take further action.

The story has sparked anger online, with one social media user tweeting: “There are people who can’t travel back home to attend … funerals or to see their loved ones for one last time, because it’s not a valid enough reason to get them a travel permit.”

Mike Tildesley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the University of Warwick, said recent decline in the number of UK cases could be because people are less willing to be tested ahead of summer holidays.

Asked about the decline, the member of the scientific modelling group Spi-M told Times Radio: “Because schools in England closed last week, we haven’t got secondary school pupils doing regular lateral flow testing and so we’re not necessarily detecting as many cases in younger people.”

He said that it has also been suggested that “people might be less willing to ‘step up’ to testing when they have symptoms” ahead of their holidays.

Tildesley stressed the importance of monitoring hospital admissions which are still rising as it “always takes a couple of weeks before hospital admissions turn around”. He said that if we start to see admissions falling as well in August, then “we would have much stronger evidence to suggest that this third wave is starting to turn around”.

Boris Johnson has called for caution despite recent falls in the daily coronavirus case figures.

The UK prime minister told LBC Radio: “We’ve seen some encouraging recent data, there’s no question about that, but it is far, far too early to draw any general conclusions.”

He added: “The most important thing is for people to recognise that the current situation still calls for a lot of caution and for people just to remember that the virus is still out there, that a lot of people have got it, it still presents a significant risk.”

Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike has called on younger people to get vaccinated and to follow coronavirus restrictions amid the surge in cases during the Olympics.

Reuters reports that cases rose to 2,848 on Tuesday, exceeding its previous record in January. Koike said that most of the new cases are in unvaccinated younger people, while most older people have been fully vaccinated.

“Younger people’s activity holds the key (to slowing the infections), and we need your cooperation,” Koike said. “Please make sure to avoid nonessential outings and observe basic anti-infection measures, and I would like younger people to get vaccinated.”

A quarter (25.5%) of people in Japan have been fully vaccinated, while 68.2% of elderly people are.

Malaysia’s health ministry has reported a further 17,405 coronavirus cases – a new daily record.

Reuters reports that the new infections takes the south-east Asian nation’s total caseload of cases to 1,061,476.

More than 8,000 deaths have also been recorded, though experts have warned that the true numbers are far higher as testing rates are low.

Rayner says people who refuse to get vaccinated are not “selfish”, following Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove’s comments saying they were.

“We know from medical advice that compulsory vaccination is not the way to go,” she tells Sky News. “It’s giving people the information and encouragement to take up the vaccine, and where we’ve done that, we’ve been incredibly successful.”

“What we want to see is testing so we can see where the virus is and isolate it”, as well as encouragement for vaccination.

Asked about people who refuse to get vaccinated, Rayner says it’s a “personal choice for them”. “I don’t think it’s selfish – what politicians should be doing is encouraging people to speak to their doctor, get the right information – not stuff online that may be factually incorrect – and get the vaccine.”

Coffey also refused to repeat Gove’s comment after being asked during the broadcast round.