On July 8, Beijing time, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga held a COVID-19 response headquarters meeting at his official residence and announced the fourth emergency declaration to Tokyo based on the revised special measures law for responding to COVID-19. This is in view of the further expansion of the epidemic, which may lead to an emergency in the medical supply system in the future, and made a judgment in an effort to contain the recent surge in infection rates.
This measure will take effect from Monday to August 22. It may cause the Tokyo Summer Olympics to be held without spectators. This will deal another blow to the Tokyo Olympics, which have been postponed for one year due to the pandemic.
Yoshihide Suga said: “We must take stronger measures to prevent another national outbreak of the new crown.”
He will hold a press conference later to explain this move. The quasi-emergency states in Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa, and Osaka will be extended to August 22. This state has fewer restrictions on commercial activities and targets high-risk areas rather than the entire prefecture. The measures currently implemented in the other five prefectures-Hokkaido, Aichi, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka will expire on Sunday as planned.
This will be Tokyo’s fourth state of emergency since the pandemic began at the beginning of last year. In principle, the government will ban restaurants from serving drinks and insist that restaurants close before 8pm. Although regions under a quasi-emergency state are technically subject to prohibition, the governors of these counties can relax this rule.
The minister in charge of the nationwide COVID-19 response work, Nishimura Yasuhiro, told a panel of experts in the morning: “We hope that people will not walk around during the summer vacation and Obon until further progress is made in the vaccination work.”
Yoshihide Suga revealed that if the situation improves as more and more people are vaccinated and the pressure on the medical system is relieved, the government will consider lifting the state of emergency in advance. The government initially planned to keep the capital in a quasi-emergency state, but was forced to change its course due to a sharp increase in the infection rate.
On Wednesday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported 920 new coronavirus cases, the most since the peak of the fourth wave of influenza in Japan in mid-May, and it exceeded the number of a week ago for 18 consecutive days. Organizers of the Olympic Games, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Japanese Organizing Committee and the International Olympic Committee, are scheduled to decide how many spectators will be allowed to attend the venue later on Thursday.
They previously agreed to allow up to 10,000 fans, or 50% of the capacity of a stadium, whichever is less, but as the infection rate in the capital climbs, they are reviewing this plan. People familiar with the matter said that there may be no spectators in Tokyo’s venues, and the same may be true of venues in nearby counties and cities. Events held outside the capital include baseball and softball at Yokohama Stadium and basketball at Saitama Super Arena.
Health experts, including Yoshihide Suga’s COVID-19 top adviser Shigeru Omin, warned that the Olympic Games scheduled to be held from July 23 to August 8, coupled with the highly infectious Delta change of the new coronavirus that was first discovered in India Body, it may cause a surge in infection rates.Return to Sohu to see more
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