Photo/Illutration People attend a memorial ceremony in Tokyo on March 10 for the victims of the Great Tokyo Air Raid of 1945, while wearing masks to prevent novel coronavirus infections. (Noriyasu Nukui)

Tokyo reported 335 new COVID-19 cases on March 11, up 56 from 279 cases reported a week ago, according to metropolitan government officials.

The latest tally brought the daily average for the week in the capital through March 11 to 273.1, or 101.5 percent of the figure for the preceding week.

The metropolitan government has set a weekly goal of reducing the average to 70 percent of the previous week.

The number of serious cases in Tokyo requiring ventilators or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, also known as an ECMO lung bypass machine, remained unchanged from the previous day at 39, the officials said.

Of the 335 new cases, 76 patients were in their 20s, followed by 63 in their 30s and 47 in their 40s. Sixty-nine people aged 65 or older tested positive for the virus.

The metropolitan government is aiming to ease the strain on the capital’s health care system by lowering the number of new cases to the stage 2 level by March 21, when the current state of emergency for Tokyo and neighboring prefectures Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba is due to be lifted.

Under the four-stage classification set by the central government’s expert panel on the COVID-19 pandemic, areas that are classified as being in stage 2 are experiencing a gradual increase in new cases.

As of March 10, Tokyo had 2,651 COVID-19 patients, including those recuperating at home and other accommodation facilities, 1,333 hospitalized with the disease and 297 who meet the central government's definition of patients in serious condition.

To achieve its stage 2 target, the capital needs to reduce its number of COVID-19 patients to 2,100, bring the number of hospitalized patients  to 1,250 and the number of patients in serious condition down to 250, according to the metropolitan government.

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