No one's safe anymore: Japan's Osaka city crumples under COVID-19 onslaught

Medical workers at Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University Hospital work in the operation wing of the hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Takatsuki, Osaka prefecture, Japan May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Akira Tomoshige

OSAKA, Japan (Reuters) - Hospitals in Japan's second largest city of Osaka are buckling under a huge wave of new coronavirus infections, running out of beds and ventilators as exhausted doctors warn of a "system collapse", and advise against holding the Olympics this summer.

Japan's western region home to 9 million people is suffering the brunt of the fourth wave of the pandemic, accounting for a third of the nation's death toll in May, although it constitutes just 7% of its population.