Japan on Monday confirmed 2,764 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the country's total number of infections to 369,197 as the government gears up to conduct "long overdue" mass random PCR tests.
The nationwide death toll has reached a total of 5,207 people, with 74 deaths reported across the country by health officials on Monday.
The number of hospitalized patients designated as being "seriously ill" stood at 1,017, according to the health ministry, rising by 10 from Sunday.
The Tokyo metropolitan government on Monday, meanwhile, reported 618 new COVID-19 infections in the capital.
The latest figure marks the first time the daily tally in the city of 14 million has dropped below the 700-mark since Dec. 28 last year.
The figure compares to 986 new cases of the novel coronavirus confirmed on Sunday.
The metropolitan government also said the number of patients designated as being "seriously ill" stood at 148 patients, eight less than reported on Sunday.
The cumulative total of infections in Tokyo now stands at 94,508 people.
With the spread of the virus showing little signs of abating in Japan and research indicating that the government-subsidized "Go To Travel" campaign may have caused travel-related COVID-19 cases to increased by nearly seven times, mass random PCR testing will finally be conducted from March, government sources said Monday.
In metropolitan areas where the number of infections have been surging resulting in a second state of emergency being declared on Jan. 7 for Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures, before being expanded to seven other prefectures, the government planned to conduct as many as several thousand polymerase chain reaction tests per day.
Up until now, local governments in Japan have only conducted PCR tests on people symptomatic of COVID-19 who have sought medical attention, or those who have had close contact with individuals who have tested positive for the virus.
Health experts in Japan have said that mass PCR testing across the country is "long overdue" and the government's understanding of the full extent of the virus' spread remains "largely unknown", with daily infection statistics only reflecting patients who have sought medical attention or those who have been tested for the virus after having close contact with a known carrier.
