Japan can see no signs of an end to the raging third wave of novel coronavirus infections as Saturday marks the first anniversary of the country’s first confirmed COVID-19 case. 

The cumulative number of infection cases in the country recently exceeded 310,000 after the third wave began last autumn.

Although the government is preparing to start coronavirus vaccinations by late February this year, many point to uncertainties regarding the efficacy and safety.

On Jan. 16, 2020, a Chinese man who returned to Japan after visiting the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus at the time, was found infected with the virus, becoming Japan’s first coronavirus case.

Following a series of infections confirmed in people entering Japan from Wuhan, a Japanese man who had never visited the Chinese city was found infected on Jan. 28. It is believed to be the first case of domestic person-to-person infection.

In February, a mass infection was found to have occurred on a foreign cruise ship visiting Japan. In the same month, Japan saw its first death caused by the coronavirus.

The daily number of infection cases rose sharply after exceeding 100 in late March. It surpassed 700 in mid-April.

While the first infection wave died down at the end of April, the number of infections began rising again in late June, marking the beginning of the second wave, which hit its peak in early August.

The coronavirus situation then settled down slightly, but the number of infection cases returned to an uptrend by November. The third wave of the epidemic began.

Japan is still battling the third wave. The daily number of new coronavirus cases hit a record high of 7,883 on Jan. 8 this year.

Infections with new coronavirus variants have been confirmed in Japan since late last month.

After detecting an apparently highly transmissible variant first found in Britain, Japan confirmed another variant from four people who had arrived in the country from Brazil on Sunday.

As of Friday, Japan had confirmed 41 cases of infections with variants. The health ministry and others are making investigations because much remains unknown about the new strains, including their infectiousness.

Many people are pinning their hopes on coronavirus vaccines as a way to suppress the further spread of the virus.

US pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer Inc., which applied for regulatory approval for its vaccine, has reached a broad agreement to supply Japan with the product for 60 million people by the end of June this year.

Pfizer is expected to submit data on its clinical trial held in Japan as early as this month. The ministry will examine the data swiftly and may approve the vaccine next month.

JIJI Press