Kazuhiro Tateda, president of the Japan Association of Infectious Diseases and a member of a government coronavirus committee, said the bug is “spreading seriously in nightlife districts,” the SCMP said.

“This is related to nightlife,” Tateda insisted, noting almost half of the most recent infections in Tokyo have been between their late teens and 40s.

“This is a very busy district of nightclubs where people are close together and that is popular with middle-aged men.”

As of Thursday, Japan had seen almost 2,400 confirmed cases, with 57 deaths,