The Japanese city of Osaka is currently reeling under a new onslaught of Covid-19 infections, with hospitals running out of beds and ventilators to treat patients, news agency Reuters reported.

Coronavirus cases in Japan are surging right before the capital, Tokyo, is set to host the Summer Olympics from July 23, after a delay of a year due to the pandemic.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Osaka reported 8,199 cases between May 10 and May 23.

Overall, Japan’s seven-day average of growth in Covid-19 cases stood at 4,970 on May 23. Only about 1.9% of the population is fully vaccinated, BBC reported.

Some experts have suggested that the coming Olympic Games, scheduled for July and August 2021, be called off. “The Olympics should be stopped, because we already have failed to stop the flow of new variants from England, and next might be an inflow of the variants first found in India,” Akira Takasu, the head of emergency medicine at the Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University Hospital was quoted as saying. “In the Olympics, 70,000 or 80,000 athletes and the people will come to this country from around the world. This may be a trigger for another disaster in the summer,” he added.