Tokyo, Dec 25: Japan on Friday confirmed its first cases of a mutated form of COVID-19 in five people who entered the nation from the U.K., health minister Norihisa Tamura said.
The same day, Japan confirmed a record 3,748 new coronavirus cases, the third consecutive day above 3,000.
The people who tested positive with the new strain, which is said to spread more easily and was blamed for a recent spike in infections in the U.K., returned to Japan this month—two at Tokyo’s Haneda airport and and three at Kansai International Airport in Osaka.
