TOKYO, March 25. /TASS/. The number of coronavirus cases in Japan, including passengers and crewmembers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, has topped 2,000 on Wednesday, the Japanese health ministry’s data suggests.
In the past 24 hours, 91 more cases were identified with 41 of them discovered in Tokyo. Therefore, the overall number of infections in Japan reached 2,011, while 55 people died.
Earlier on Wednesday, Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike appealed to citizens of the capital, asking them to refrain from leaving their houses unless absolutely necessary due to fears that coronavirus will spread and overall stay away from the streets at nighttime. She also asked locals to avoid any mass events - be it outside or inside. She then added that people should preferably work from home during the week.
In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 150 countries.
On March 11, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. As of now, over 410,000 people have been infected around the world and more than 18,000 have died.