Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga apologized today for reissuing the emergency situation. Photo: Live from the Prime Minister’s official residence Facebook page
The Japanese government officially decided this evening to issue a declaration of emergency for the third time for the four prefectures of Tokyo, Osaka, Hyogo and Kyoto, where the outbreak of Newcastle pneumonia (COVID-19) is serious, for the period from April 25 to May 11. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga apologized for issuing another emergency declaration.
The Japanese government issued its first “Declaration of Emergency” on April 7, 2020 for seven prefectures, including Tokyo and Osaka, and later extended it to all 47 prefectures; 39 of these prefectures lifted the ban on May 14, 2020, and all of Japan continued to do so until May 25, 2020.
At the end of 2020, when the whole country was preparing for the New Year holidays, a record high of 3,791 confirmed cases were reported in a single day throughout the country, so the Japanese government issued a second “emergency declaration” on January 7.
After the emergency was lifted, the number of confirmed cases rose again and entered the “fourth wave of the epidemic,” with Osaka Prefecture and Hyogo Prefecture rapidly expanding the epidemic and the number of confirmed cases in one metropolitan area and three prefectures in the metropolitan area (Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, and Kanagawa) also increasing rapidly. The Osaka prefecture has called on the central government to issue three “emergency declarations”, and the Tokyo metropolitan area and Hyogo prefecture have also joined the call.
The Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK) reports that the Japanese government held a meeting of the epidemic prevention and countermeasures headquarters in the evening and formally decided to issue a “declaration of emergency” for the four prefectures, and decided to apply the “priority measures to prevent the spread of the disease” in Ehime Prefecture in the first phase of the emergency. The period of implementation will be from April 25 to May 11, and the period of implementation will be extended to May 11 for Miyagi and Okinawa prefectures, where the priority measures have already been implemented.
Prime Minister Kan said that the third emergency was issued in order to be able to carry out “short-term intensive” epidemic prevention during the upcoming Golden Week holiday, to strengthen the epidemic prevention requirements for the catering industry and to curb the flow of people to prevent the continued spread of the highly infectious mutant strain of the virus.
He said about 7 million doses of the vaccine will be distributed immediately after the Golden Week to complete the vaccination of medical personnel, and a total of 100 million doses are expected to be distributed by the end of June to ensure that every local government will be able to complete two doses of vaccination for the elderly in need by the end of July.
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