Tokyo Olympics records highest single-day spike with 24 new COVID cases

The Tokyo Olympic organising committee on Thursday reported 24 more COVID-19 cases associated with the games, the highest daily count since the committee began compiling infections data from the start of this month.

The 24 cases, bringing the cumulative total to 193, included three athletes from overseas in Tokyo for the Olympics, which opened on Friday following an unprecedented one-year postponement due to the pandemic.

The committee said the three were all staying in the athletes' village. The daily figures were announced by the committee a day after COVID-19 infection numbers for both Japan and Tokyo hit all-time highs of 9,583 and 3,177, respectively.

The numbers issued by the Olympic organising body do not include those announced by central and local governments. The rest of the 24 cases are 15 contractors and six games-linked officials. Of the 24, 17 were residents of Japan, it said, adding 39,209 people from overseas had entered Japan for the games as of Tuesday.