- Japan expands coronavirus State of Emergency.
- The expansion of the State of Emergency comes as Tokyo hosts Paralympics.
- Hospitals across Japan are struggling amid COVID-19 surge.
According to Japanese government sources, Japan will add eight more prefectures to the COVID-19 State of Emergency that currently covers Tokyo and 12 other areas, in an attempt to stop the country’s tsunami of coronavirus infection.
Hokkaido, Miyagi, Gifu, Aichi, Mie, Shiga, Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures will officially be under the State of Emergency from this Friday until September 12.
Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met with members of his Cabinet including health minister Norihisa Tamura and Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of the COVID-19 response, to discuss the move, with the decision to be made official at a task force meeting on Wednesday.
Under the State of Emergency, restaurants are asked not to serve alcohol or offer karaoke, and instructed to close by 8 pm. Major commercial facilities including department stores and shopping malls are asked to limit the number of customers allowed in at the same time.
Suga has also called on the public to reduce outings to crowded areas by 50%, and for firms to have employees work from home and cut commuter numbers by 70%.
The expansion of the state of emergency — currently in place in Tokyo as well as Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Fukuoka and Okinawa prefectures — comes as the capital hosts the Paralympics, to be held almost entirely without spectators, from Tuesday.
The government is also set to expand the quasi-state of emergency covering 16 prefectures to another four — Kochi, Saga, Nagasaki and Miyazaki — the sources said, a move that would allow governors to place business restrictions on specific areas rather than on their entire prefectures.
Hospitals across much of Japan are struggling amid the surge in COVID-19 cases, with a shortage of beds forcing many with milder symptoms to cope at home.
Urua, na National Governors’ Association called on the government to impose either a state of emergency or a quasi-state of emergency nationwide in order to curb the spread of infections.
