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Masked pedestrians prepare to cross the busy Shibuya Scramble intersection in central Tokyo, Feb. 4, 2021.

Masked pedestrians prepare to cross the busy Shibuya Scramble intersection in central Tokyo, Feb. 4, 2021. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)

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TOKYO — The one-day count of new coronavirus infections in Japan’s capital city fell below 300 for a fourth consecutive day Wednesday.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported another 213 people tested positive for the virus, according to public broadcaster NHK. The seven-day moving average has fallen to 318.3 people likely to become infected each day, according to metro government data.

More than 110,000 people in Tokyo have contracted the virus over the past year and 1,285 have died of complications of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, according to the city.

U.S. commands had reported two new coronavirus cases in Japan and South Korea as of 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Kadena Air Base on Okinawa had one person fall ill with symptoms of COVID-19, self-isolate and test positive, according to a Facebook post Tuesday evening. An unspecified number of the person’s close contacts were also quarantined.

U.S. Forces Korea said a second soldier at K-16, an Army air base in Seongman city just southeast of Seoul, contracted the virus after contact with another soldier who tested positive on Saturday, according to a news release Tuesday. The second soldier tested positive Monday.

South Korea reported 440 new coronavirus patients as of midnight Tuesday, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Seoul accounted for 138 and Gyeonggi, where the largest U.S. base in the country, Camp Humphreys, is located, reported 137.

The country is rebounding from a spike in new viral cases that came on following the Lunar New Year holiday Feb. 12. Daily counts topped 600 late last week, according to the agency.

Stars and Stripes reporter Yoo Kyong Chang contributed to this report.

ditzler.joseph@stripes.com Twitter: @JosephDitzler

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Joseph Ditzler is a Marine Corps veteran and the Pacific editor for Stars and Stripes. He’s a native of Pennsylvania and has written for newspapers and websites in Alaska, California, Florida, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania. He studied journalism at Penn State and international relations at the University of Oklahoma.

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