Japan extends COVID-19 emergency until March 7

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) – Japan on Tuesday extended a state of emergency in the capital Tokyo and 10 other provinces for a month to stem the spread of coronavirus.

Restrictions were first imposed in three prefectures on Jan. 7 until Feb. 7. It was expanded to a total of 11 regions on Jan. 14, which are now in place until March 7.

The 11 prefectures are Tochigi, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Gifu, Aichi, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, and Fukuoka.

“New infections are falling but we need to continue this and decrease the number of patients who are hospitalized or in serious condition,” Kyodo News quoted Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga as telling the parliament.

According to the government, the declaration of state of emergency is not intended to stop most of the socio-economic activities, but rather to focus on situations with a high risk of infection and to ensure effective and targeted countermeasures.

Specifically, measures focus on situations that involve eating and drinking out. Hence, restaurants have been asked to shorten their business hours (11 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time), and people urged to refrain from leaving the house, and work from home.

Amusement centers and large-scale stores were requested to follow the same approach.

All those who enter, re-enter or return to Japan (including Japanese nationals) are mandated to submit a certificate of negative test result of pre-entry COVID-19 test until the lifting of the state of emergency.

They are also subject to conducting a COVID-19 test upon arrival, and required to stay for 14 days at a location designated for quarantine.

Expecting people's cooperation to end the pandemic, Suga said the government “aims to start COVID-19 vaccinations in mid-February.”

Japan has confirmed 394,269 COVID-19 infections and 5,952 virus-linked deaths, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University.