Suga has officially replaced Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving premier, who resigned because of ill health earlier this summer.

Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister, announced last month that he was stepping down because of health problems.

The new economic data will put the new prime minister, to be elected in a ruling party leadership race on Sept. 14, under pressure to take bolder economic support measures.

"It is gut wrenching to have to leave my job before accomplishing my goals,'' Shinzo Abe said Friday.

The Prime Minister's Office declined to comment on the hospital visit, saying it was not on his official schedule.

Amid virus fears and worries about the fading memories of the fast-aging war generation, about 500 participants, reduced from 6,200 last year, mourned the dead with a minute of silence.

At 11:02 a.m., the moment the B-29 bomber Bockscar dropped a 4.5-ton (10,000-pound) plutonium bomb dubbed "Fat Man,'' Nagasaki survivors and other participants stood in a minute of silence to honour more than 70,000 dead.

The government had said it would reassess the situation in mid-May.

The head of the Japan Medical Association also said it's too early to consider lifting the nationwide state of emergency over the pandemic.

Media reports in Japan estimate the year-long delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic will cost $2 billion to $6 billion.