Japan registers 415 new Covid deaths, highest ever tally in a single day

Japan on Wednesday recorded 415 Covid deaths, the highest-ever count for a single day, health ministry data showed. 

Japan said it had 216,219 newly confirmed coronavirus cases on Wednesday, which marks a rise of 4 per cent from a week earlier. The number is close to the record high of some 260,000 a day in August. 

China in shambles

Chinese hospitals and funeral homes were under intense pressure on Wednesday as a surging Covid-19 wave drained resources. 

Staff at Huaxi, a hospital in the city of Chengdu, said they were “extremely busy” with Covid patients. There were long queues inside and outside the hospital’s emergency department on Tuesday evening. Almost all of the patients have Covid, one emergency department pharmacy staff member said. 

The hospital has no stocks of Covid-specific medicine and can only provide drugs for symptoms such as coughing, she said.

Car parks around the Dongjiao funeral home, one of the biggest in Chengdu, were full. We have to do this about 200 times a day now, said one funeral worker. We are so busy we don’t even have time to eat.

This has been the case since the opening up. Before it was around 30-50 a day. “Many have died from Covid,” said another worker.  Cremation slots are all fully booked. You can’t get one until the new year. 

Hong Kong opens up

Hong Kong will end some of its last major Covid rules, scrapping gathering limits to vaccination checks and testing for travelers, in a sweeping overhaul of policies aimed at reviving its reputation as a global financial center. 

There will be no cap on the number of people who can gather in public, and the vaccine pass for entry to a raft of venues will also be scrapped, starting from Thursday, Chief Executive John Lee said Wednesday. 

Close contacts of Covid-positive people won’t need to quarantine and limits on the number of people who can sit together in restaurants and bars will be lifted.

The city will also no longer require inbound travelers to take two PCR tests.