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As of March 17, 2022, the highest number of approximately 1.2 million patients with coronavirus (COVID-19) were confirmed in Tokyo Prefecture in Japan, followed by Osaka Prefecture with about 747.9 thousand people. On that day, all prefectures out of 47 reported new infection cases.

 Tokyo and Kanagawa 

The first coronavirus case in Japan was confirmed on January 16, 2020, in Kanagawa prefecture. Part of the Greater Tokyo Area, Kanagawa is the country’s second-most populous prefecture with more than nine million inhabitants. A few days after the first case in Kanagawa, Japan’s second case was reported in Tokyo. Kanagawa and Tokyo, along with Osaka, and four other prefectures, were the first to be placed under a state of emergency by then prime minister Shinzo Abe in April 2020. From the outbreak of COVID-19 until March 2022, the state of emergency was announced four times for Tokyo and three times for Kanagawa Prefecture.

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Osaka prefecture reported its first case of COVID-19 on January 29, 2020. The prefecture is the center of Japan’s second-most populated urban region, the Keihanshin metropolitan area, which includes Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures. The virus continued to spread in Osaka with the acceleration of new infection cases per day recorded in January, April to May, July to September in 2021, and January and onwards in 2022.

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