Tokyo asks restaurants, bars to shut early

TOKYO Tokyo’s governor called Thursday for r es taurants, bar s and karaoke par lours to shut earli er to help contain the coronavi rus as the Japanese capital reported a record new number of infections . The cur rent si tuation in Tokyo is more s er ious than befor e,” Yuriko Koike said, ci ting expert opinions. There were several clus ter s in Tokyo. We have no time to waste.” Japan has so far s een a comparatively small overall outbreak, wi th almost 32,500 infections and jus t over 1,000 deaths s ince the country detected its first COVID-19 case in January. But the number of infections has been on the rise since the government lifted a state of emergency two months ago. –AFP