Japan was poised for a state of emergency as Covid-19 cases soar

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At a New Year’s press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said an emergency declaration is under consideration, which would apply to Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa. The governors of all four regions have all urged Suga to do so now as things grow.

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

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

The Japanese authorities are currently limited in their powers to punish those who break the restrictions, even in a state of emergency, something Suga’s government reportedly plans to change to allow local governments to enforce compliance.
The prime minister, who took power last September following Shinzo Abe’s resignation, has seen his approval score drop in recent weeks, partly due to his handling of 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 dead. The greater Tokyo region was among the hardest hit, with 816 new cases Sunday after recording a new one-day high of 1,337 last Thursday.

Japan last week confirmed its first cases of the new, potentially more contagious, variant of the British coronavirus, prompting the government to ban all foreign travelers from the country.
Cases across the country have been on the rise in recent weeks, thanks in part to cold winter weather and distant social fatigue.

Japan was one of the first countries to be hit by the pandemic, but the government was able to keep things at bay by enforcing strict border controls, making efforts to track down contacts and encouraging its citizens to distance themselves socially. The efforts had been largely successful, with Japan able to avoid the kind of strict lockdowns practiced in other parts of the world.

Japanese health officials have consistently urged citizens to reduce their daily activities, stay vigilant and eat out only in small numbers, but that no longer seems to be enough to stop the spread of the pandemic.

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

Suga turned down calls to declare a state of emergency in November, citing an advisory panel’s advice that hospitals were still relatively empty. However, the total number of cases in Japan has more than doubled since then.
Japanese officials are thought to be wary of introducing a lockdown or other emergency measures for fear of harming the economy. The country is also once again facing tough decisions around the Olympics, which were scheduled to take place last summer, but which were eventually postponed as the pandemic spread around the world.
According to the International Olympic Committee, the Games in Tokyo will take place this summer from July 23 to August 8, with simple opening and closing ceremonies in keeping with an “overall simplification of the Games.”

Whether and how many foreign spectators will attend the Olympic Games must be determined in the spring.

A successful Olympics will likely depend on how quickly vaccination schedules can be rolled out worldwide, not least in Japan itself. Vaccination programs won’t begin in Japan until the end of February, well behind some other countries. At Monday’s press conference, Suga said primary care medical personnel and the elderly would be the first groups to receive the vaccinations, adding that the government had brought forward the timeline due to the latest outbreak.
However, the Japanese authorities will also face what is expected to be a widespread antipathy to getting shot: Japan is “among the countries with the lowest vaccine confidence in the world,” according to a recent study by The Lancet.

Suga has pledged to “take the initiative” on vaccination, saying on Monday that a successful Olympics would serve as “evidence that humans have overcome the coronavirus.”

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

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