Japan registered a single-day record 19 deaths linked to the new coronavirus as of Tuesday, while the cumulative number of confirmed infections topped 8,000, after 477 people tested positive.

Out of the 8,161 cases nationwide, 161 people in Tokyo were newly found with the virus, bringing cumulative cases in the Japanese capital to 2,319. Newly confirmed cases came to 59 in Osaka Prefecture, while Fukuoka Prefecture recorded 33 cases. All three prefectures are covered under last week’s state of emergency declaration.

With the 19 deaths, the nationwide total rose to 173, including people who were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined off Japan earlier this year.

In Tokyo, five infected men died, including four inpatients at Eiju General Hospital in Taito Ward. Three people died in Ishikawa Prefecture and two each died in Hokkaido, Gunma, Saitama and Fukuoka prefectures. Chiba, Fukui and Osaka prefectures also recorded one death each.

Meanwhile, 17 residents and five staff members at a social welfare facility in the city of Hiroshima were found to have contracted the coronavirus the same day. Concluding that a mass infection occurred at the facility, the Hiroshima municipal government is conducting virus tests on some 90 people, including residents.

According to the municipal government, an employee in her 20s had been confirmed to be infected with the virus, and the local authorities had conducted virus tests on six residents with fevers. After recovering from a sore throat, the woman had continued to work at the facility without showing any symptoms.

In Sendai, infections were confirmed in two children attending a nursery in the city’s Izumi Ward and four other people related to the facility. Five elementary school students attending an after-school child care facility in the same ward were also confirmed as having contractd th virus.

The Sendai city government suspects that infection clusters occurred at both facilities. An infected foreign student in her 20s lectured at English conversation classes held at the nursery and the after-school facility earlier this month, according to the city.

Shimane Prefecture, which saw its first case last Thursday, when a woman in her teens who works part-time at a restaurant in Matsue tested positive for the virus, saw its numbers jump, with a total of eight employees and customers at the restaurant having been found to have contracted the virus.

The Matsue city government suspects that a cluster infection occurred at the restaurant.

At a hospital for respiratory disease treatment in Sapporo, five people, including a doctor and inpatients, were newly confirmed as virus carriers, bringing the total number of infected people with links to the hospital to 25.

RELATED PHOTOS Police officers wearing protective face masks patrol a street after the government announced the state of emergency for the capital and some prefectures following the coronavirusoutbreak, at an entertainment and amusement district in Tokyo on Tuesday. | REUTERS