Owners of izakayas in the Shimbashi district of Japan’s capital are facing an existential threat

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A vivid rainbow heralds the arrival of dusk in Tokyo, but the fabled promise of a pot of gold must seem like a cruel joke to restaurateurs in Shimbashi, where office blocks stand in happy proximity to hundreds of watering holes.

In pre-coronavirus days, nightfall would be the cue for the neighbourhood’s neon lights to flicker into action and for touts armed with laminated menus to beckon office workers inside with promises of cheap food and drink.

Beds almost at capacity and an estimated 17,000 people with symptoms waiting for treatment

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A surge in coronavirus cases in Japan is forcing exhausted medical workers to make “heartbreaking” decisions about treatment as healthcare services are close to being overwhelmed, medics have said.

In Osaka, at the centre of the country’s fourth wave of infections, hospital beds are almost at capacity and reports say an estimated 17,000 people with virus symptoms are being treated at home or waiting to be admitted to a medical facility. In recent weeks more than a dozen have died before they could be hospitalised.