Torchbearers for this summer's Tokyo Olympics ran through an empty park in Osaka Prefecture on Tuesday, after the flame relay was rerouted from public roads due to a sharp rebound in COVID-19 infections.
A day before the 100-day milestone ahead of the opening of the Olympics, Osaka — a metropolis recently hit by record daily numbers of new infections — became the first prefecture in Japan to give up on holding the relay in its planned format.
On Tuesday, Osaka Prefecture reported a record 1,099 new COVID-19 cases, topping 1,000 for the first time and breaking the previous record of 918 cases confirmed on Saturday.