The cumulative tally of cases of coronavirus infection in Japan has surpassed 4 million.

The first case in Japan was confirmed on January 16, 2020, when a man who had traveled to Wuhan, China, developed symptoms of pneumonia.

Infections spread across the country. The Japanese government declared a state of emergency for the first time during the first wave of infections in the spring of 2020. A second wave came in the summer of that year, and a third wave from late 2020 through early 2021, centering on the Tokyo metropolitan area.

As the Alpha variant of the virus became prevalent in March of last year, a fourth wave hit mainly the Kansai region encompassing Osaka.

The case count topped 1 million on August 6 last year, during a fifth wave dominated by the Delta variant.

The pace of infections has accelerated since the beginning of this year with the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The total number of cases topped 2 million on January 20, rose to 3 million on February 3 and surpassed 4 million on Tuesday.

It took nearly 19 months from the first arrival of the virus in Japan for the case count to reach 1 million. Another five-and-a-half months saw the figure rise to 2 million, while the tally then soared to 3 million within the space of just two weeks. It hit 4 million a mere 12 days later.

Data released by Johns Hopkins University of the United States shows there are 18 countries other than Japan where total case numbers have exceeded 4 million.

The US is in the leading spot with a cumulative total of 77.92 million, followed by India with 42.69 million and Brazil at 27.55 million. France follows with a tally of 21.89 million, Britain comes in at 18.48 and Russia at 14.1 million.