Japan on Thursday confirmed 1,660 new cases of coronavirus, a record daily high since the outbreak of the virus earlier this year, amid signs of what some health experts refer to as a possible "third wave" of infections as the winter season approaches.

The nationwide tally, compiled by Kyodo News from official information, comes as urban areas such as Tokyo and Osaka, and the country's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, a popular tourist destination, are seeing a spike in the number of new cases.

After a meeting of a government subcommittee on virus countermeasures, Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of the Japanese government's coronavirus response, warned that "a surge (in infections) on par with the one in summer is on its way."

The previous single-day record of 1,597 new cases nationwide was logged on Aug. 7.

The experts have attributed the resurgence in infections to cold weather as people spend more time indoors. Toshio Nakagawa, head of the Japan Medical Association, has described the latest situation as "a third wave" of the coronavirus.

Since September, single-day coronavirus cases across the country had hovered between 300 and 600 before they started increasing in October. To date, more than 114,000 confirmed cases have been reported across Japan, including about 700 from a cruise ship that was quarantined in Yokohama in February. Over 1,800 deaths have been attributed to the coronavirus.