PM Abe lifts the State of Emergency in Japan to cover the entire nation
Kanako Mita and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
The coronavirus crisis (Covid-19) state of emergency in Japan is now fully lifted. With infections so low and restrictions already lifted in 42 out of 47 prefectures, then it was expected.
In truth, with deaths being 6 per million then Japan was never overwhelmed. One only needs to look at deaths per million being 542 in the United Kingdom (ONS deaths stress 45,000 dead and not the official 37,000, so 672 deaths per million) to see how Japan escaped the worse.
Equally, despite some media hysteria in the domestic and international press, by early May deaths between zero and ten in 34 prefectures out of 47 told a different story. Hence, once areas including Tokyo (280 deaths), Hokkaido (83 deaths), Osaka (78 deaths), and Kanagawa (76 deaths) became contained then rebuilding could begin. Therefore, with infections falling dramatically, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could finally lift the state of emergency.
Abe uttered, “Today the government will lift the state of emergency across the nation. We’ve set some of the most strict criteria in the world to lift the declaration, and we concluded that prefectures across the country have met that standard.”
He continued, “From now on, it’s important to think about how we can conduct business and live our lives while still controlling the risk of infection. The government’s coronavirus task force is set to meet shortly to finalize the decision.”
Japan knows that fresh coronavirus clusters can easily develop. This happened in Singapore and South Korea even if the impact of deaths was limited. However, in Iran, it seems that new infections and deaths are appearing once more after coming down. So caution is essential in the coming weeks and months.
Japan must now focus on all areas of weakness. This applies to ICU capacity, ramping up essential medical products, stem over-reliance on China in areas of the supply chain, a more centralized hospital care system during times of emergency, and other important areas.
After all, this time Japan escaped the worse. However, next time this country may become engulfed like several nations in Europe, Brazil, the United States, and other nations.
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ – Tokyo Metropolitan Government website for updates about the coronavirus crisis in Tokyo.
https://covid19japan.com/ – Japan regional coronavirus statistics
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ World coronavirus statistics
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