Japan ready for state of emergency with cases of Covid-19 fired

Japan ready for state of emergency with cases of Covid-19 fired

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Speaking at a New Year press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said an emergency declaration was being considered and would apply to Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa. All governors in all four regions asked Suga to do so, as cases increased.

“If necessary, we will not hesitate to send medical personnel from the Self Defense Force,” added Suga, saying the government will support medical facilities to ensure they are not overloaded.

Suga did not say when the government would make a decision or what restrictions could be enacted. The first state of emergency in Japan, declared last spring, relatively early in the pandemic, lasted more than a month and saw schools and non-essential businesses closed.

Japanese authorities are currently limited in their powers to punish those who violate restrictions, even in a state of emergency, something the Suga government is planning to change to allow local governments to enforce enforcement.
The prime minister, who took power last September after Shinzo Abe’s resignation, has seen his approval rating plummet in recent weeks, partly due to the way he handled the pandemic.

On Sunday, Japan registered 3,150 new cases and 51 deaths, bringing the national total to 244,559, with more than 3,612 deaths. The Greater Tokyo region is among the hardest hit, with 816 new cases on Sunday after last Thursday, setting a new single-day record of 1,337.

Japan confirmed its first cases of the new, potentially more infectious variant of the UK coronavirus last week, prompting the government to ban all foreign travelers from entering the country.
Cases across the country have increased in recent weeks, partly due to the cold winter weather and the fatigue of social detachment.

Japan was one of the first countries hit by the pandemic, but the government managed to keep the cases under control through strict border controls, investing efforts in tracking contacts and forcing its citizens to practice social detachment. The efforts have been largely successful, with Japan being able to avoid the kind of strict blockade enacted in other parts of the world.

Japanese health officials continually recommend that citizens reduce their daily activities, remain vigilant and only dine out in small groups, but that no longer seems to be enough to prevent the pandemic from spreading.

“Japan’s response is very slow and confusing, which reflects the lack of leadership and strategy. On the one hand, they encouraged domestic travel and eating out, on the other, they just asked people to be careful,” said Kenji Shibuya, director of the Population Health Institute at King’s College London. “The government is basically asking people voluntarily to behave properly, but it doesn’t do more than that.”

Suga rejected calls to declare a state of emergency in November, citing the advice of an advisory panel that hospitals were still relatively empty. However, Japan’s total case count has more than doubled since then.
Japanese authorities are afraid to introduce a blockade or other emergency measures for fear of damaging the economy. The country is also facing, once again, difficult decisions surrounding the Olympic Games, which should have occurred last summer, but were postponed due to the spread of the pandemic around the world.
The Tokyo Games are scheduled to take place this summer from July 23 to August 8, according to the International Olympic Committee, with opening and closing ceremonies reduced in line with a “general simplification of the Games”.

Whether and how many foreign viewers will be able to attend the Olympics will be decided in the spring.

A successful Olympics will likely depend on how quickly vaccination schemes can be implemented around the world, especially in Japan itself. Inoculation programs are not expected to start in Japan until the end of February, far behind some other countries. At a news conference on Monday, Suga said that front-line health professionals and the elderly would be the first groups to receive vaccines, adding that the government has moved ahead of schedule due to the latest outbreak.
However, Japanese authorities will also have to deal with what is expected to be widespread antipathy towards injection: Japan is “among the countries with the least confidence in vaccines in the world”, according to a recent study by The Lancet .

Suga promised to “take the initiative” in vaccination and said on Monday that a successful Olympics would serve as “proof that humans have outgrown the coronavirus”.

Junko Ogura reported from Tokyo, Japan, James Griffiths reported from Hong Kong. CNN’s Joshua Berlinger and Selina Wang contributed reporting.

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