The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has begun offering free hotel rooms over the New Year to people hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

Tokyo officials are working with local welfare offices and support groups to allow people who lost their homes to stay at business hotels free of charge from Monday until January 19.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is seeking more hotel rooms to accommodate coronavirus sufferers with mild or no symptoms.

Tokyo government officials started moving patients to hotels in the capital earlier this month to free up hospital beds for those in a more serious condition.