He was fit and healthy, and practiced martial arts when he had free time from his job as an IT engineer.

He didn’t eat out or go for drinks, taking necessary coronavirus precautions as he hadn’t been able to get vaccinated yet because older people were prioritized in the vaccine rollout.

Still, the Kanagawa Prefecture man and his wife contracted COVID-19 about two months ago, at a time when cases were peaking across the country amid Japan's fifth and largest wave of infections.