(ANSA) - TOKYO, 07 AUG - Covid infections in Japan have reached the psychological threshold of one million since the beginning of the pandemic, a rise that has been consolidating at an alarming rate with the expansion of the Delta variant in recent weeks.
The virus was first detected in the country on January 16 last year, when a man of about thirty, residing in Kanagawa prefecture, tested positive after returning from a trip to the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the pathogen. In April 2020, immediately after the declaration of the first state of emergency, the number of infections in Japan exceeded 10 thousand.
Exactly one year later, the positivity rose to 500 million during the fourth wave, with the spread of the English variant. A figure that has shot up to one million in the next four months to date. What is now recognized as the fifth wave of the virus began to expand in June via the Delta variant, spreading predominantly to the capital and neighboring regions. In the last 9 days alone, over 100 thousand cases of coronavirus have been reported. To date, the number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic in Tokyo stands at 236,138, almost a quarter of the national total. (HANDLE).