The number of new COVID-19 cases in Japan is rising again — albeit slightly — but remains at a relatively low level, the health ministry said Friday, when it released its first weekly report after stopping counting cases daily following the downgrade of the disease earlier this month.

The number of new patients reported in the week from May 8 through Sunday from around 5,000 designated hospitals and clinics across the country was 12,922, or an average of 2.63 patients per facility, the ministry said. That’s up from 1.8 in the previous week’s average reported from the same institutions, and from 1.4 from April 10 to 16.

During the April 10-16 period, the number of new cases counted under the older method — in which all medical institutions treating COVID-19 patients were required to report the number of new diagnoses on a daily basis — was 56,602, according to health ministry data.

Officials said weekly averages before and after the May 8 downgrade cannot be simply compared, as the protocols for COVID-19 care and reporting have changed. But the overall upward trend that began in April seems to be continuing, they said.

They added, however, that it would take more time for them to determine whether the recent uptick means infections are really rebounding, or if it just reflects a delay in the reporting of cases due to the Golden Week holidays, when many hospitals and clinics were closed and thus fewer cases were likely to be reported.

By prefecture, Okinawa saw the highest average of 6.07 new patients per clinic in the week through Sunday, followed by 4.9 in Ishikawa, 4.36 in Hokkaido and 4.3 in Niigata.

The number of new hospitalizations nationwide was 2,330 from May 8 through Sunday, remaining flat from 2,385 the week before and slightly down from 2,581 two weeks before. The seven-day average of patients using an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) system or artificial respirator was 18, down from 19 the week before, according to the health ministry.

On May 8, Japan downgraded the category of COVID-19 under the infectious diseases law from one similar to Class 2, which includes SARS and tuberculosis, to Class 5, putting it on par with seasonal flu. The ministry monitors flu trends through weekly tallies of new cases from the 5,000 designated institutions.