Total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Japan exceeded the 100,000 mark on Thursday, public broadcaster NHK said, as the number of daily infections has crept up in recent weeks.
The number of people infected with the coronavirus in Japan has come to 100,516, including those who contracted the virus aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship earlier this year, after 809 people newly tested positive, NHK said.
"The number of newly infected people was largely flat before, but it has been edging up since (the start of) October," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Naoki Okada told a regular news conference.
"As Prime Minister (Yoshihide) Suga said in his policy speech, we need to steer clear of the kind of explosive outbreak seen in some other countries no matter what."
Japan has not suffered the same sort of surge in COVID-19 cases seen in Europe and the United States, and Suga has said he is determined to hold the Tokyo Olympics next year after the games were postponed for a year due to the pandemic.
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
