Photo/Illutration Students take an entrance examination with panels aimed at preventing droplets containing the novel coronavirus from being scattered at Komaba Toho Junior High School in Tokyo on Feb. 1. (Tsubasa Setoguchi)

Tokyo passed the grim 100,000 milestone of total COVID-19 cases on Feb. 1 although new cases on the day fell to 393, the first time the daily count has dipped below 400 since last month, metropolitan health officials said.

The last time the count was below 400 was on Dec. 21, when 392 new cases were reported.
The latest figure pushed up the accumulated total of cases to 100,234, the most of any prefecture in the nation, and the first to push past 100,000.

There have been steep spikes in new infections in the capital since late last year, which has propelled the total number of new cases in January to about 40,000.

The figure compared with about 10,000 in November and about 20,000 in December, showing that the spread of the virus has accelerated since the third wave of infections from late autumn.

The positivity rate jumped to 14.5 percent on Jan. 7 from between 3 percent and 4 percent in early November.

As cases surged, medical facilities in the capital were inundated with COVID-19 patients.

As of Nov. 1, 1,013 patients were hospitalized. But the number of hospitalizations swelled to 3,427 on Jan. 12. As of Jan. 31, 2,891 patients were hospitalized.

Of the patients hospitalized, those in serious condition increased, placing a heavy strain on the capital's medical system. 

Tokyo defines serious cases as patients requiring ventilators or an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) device, which circulates blood through an artificial lung.

There were 34 such patients as of Nov. 1. But the number rose to a record 160 on Jan. 20. The count has receded in recent days, totaling 133 on Feb. 1, down seven from the day before.

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