Coronavirus outbreak updates: Dec. 24, 2020

As of 11:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 24

• Japan confirmed over 3,700 coronavirus cases Thursday, marking the highest daily tally for a second straight day, as Tokyo and several other areas continued to report record numbers of infections amid growing concern over the strain on the medical system.
  
  
• The Japan Football Association decided Thursday to halt general ticket sales for the Emperor's Cup and national high school championships after the government retightened entry limits for large-scale events in response to rising coronavirus infection numbers.
  
  
• The process to remove melted fuel from one of the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, initially planned to start in 2021, will be delayed by at least a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the government said Thursday.
  
  
• China's trade with North Korea plunged to its lowest level for a second straight month in November as Pyongyang has been bolstering measures to curb the entry of the novel coronavirus into the country, foreign affairs experts said Thursday.
  
  
• People in Japan are embracing a different way of celebrating Christmas, with more opting to stay at home and order high-end dinners amid the coronavirus pandemic.
  
  
• Tokyo reported a record 888 daily coronavirus infections on Thursday, amid growing concern over the strain on the medical system.
  
  
• U.S. biotechnology firm Moderna Inc. said its COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be protective against variants of the novel coronavirus recently detected in Britain, based on data to date.

As of 11 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 23

• About 18 percent of more than 1,000 universities and other higher education institutions in Japan continued to reduce their in-person teaching to less than half of their total as of October due to the coronavirus pandemic, the education ministry said Wednesday.
  
  
• Japan confirmed a new daily record of over 3,200 coronavirus cases on Wednesday, as Tokyo and several other areas continue to see an unprecedented spike in infections.
  
  
• The novel coronavirus pandemic has been picked as the top domestic news story of 2020 by senior editors of Kyodo News and its member or subscriber newspapers and broadcasters.
  
  
• Japan has decided to tighten its border to Britain as it seeks to prevent the spread of a new variant of the coronavirus detected in the European country, the government said Wednesday.