TOKYO — Japan on Friday prolonged a state of emergency in Tokyo and different areas till the finish of May to include a surge of coronavirus instances, casting further doubt on the nation’s skill to safely host the Summer Olympics, that are scheduled to start in 11 weeks.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga made the announcement at a gathering of the authorities’s coronavirus activity power, saying that the measures had been vital as a result of infections stay at a “high level, mainly in large cities.”

The announcement extends emergency measures imposed last month to 2 extra prefectures, masking a complete of six prefectures, together with Tokyo and Osaka, which can be collectively dwelling to over a 3rd of Japan’s 126 million individuals. Another eight prefectures will probably be underneath barely looser restrictions.

The current state of emergency, which had been imposed to curb journey throughout the just-ended Golden Week vacation interval and had been set to run out subsequent week, haven’t slowed Japan’s fourth wave of coronavirus infections. In early March, the nation recorded about 1,000 every day new. It is now recording almost 6,000, in response to a New York Times database.

Health officers say that they’re seeing a rising variety of instances of coronavirus variants spreading in the inhabitants, together with at the least 26 instances of the pressure first detected in India. The authorities in Tokyo say that in 4 out of 5 instances present in the metropolis, the contaminated individual neither traveled overseas nor had shut contact with somebody who had.

The outbreak is stretching well being care methods even in Japan’s largest cities. On Thursday, there have been 370 individuals being handled for critical instances of Covid-19 in Osaka, a prefecture of 9 million individuals, greater than the variety of hospital beds obtainable for severely in poor health sufferers.

Japan, which has recorded greater than 620,000 infections and 10,000 deaths since the begin of the pandemic, has managed the virus higher than many nations. But the authorities has confronted criticism for the sluggish pace of vaccinations, and for pledging to go ahead with the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled to start on July 23, regardless of widespread public opposition.

Toru Hashimoto, a lawyer and a former governor of Osaka prefecture, stated on a tv present on Friday that Olympic organizers had been ignoring the severity of Japan’s outbreak, and that it was inappropriate to proceed holding pre-Olympic “test events” throughout the state of emergency, although they’re happening with out spectators.

“If the government wants to reduce the number of people in the city, it’s not a time when test events can be held,” Mr. Hashimoto stated.

The authorities has imposed two earlier states of emergency throughout the pandemic, though they’re looser than the complete lockdowns seen in many countries. The measures permit the prefectures to ask companies to shut or to limit their hours, and to high quality these that don’t.

Under the prolonged state of emergency, individuals are requested to not exit for nonessential issues, particularly after eight p.m., and to chorus from touring outdoors their prefectures. Karaoke parlors are requested to shut, and eating places requested to not serve alcohol, with fines of as much as 300,000 yen, or $2,750, for noncompliance.