TOKYO – Restaurants and karaoke rooms in Tokyo’s 23 neighborhoods were afloat to operate from Wednesday, after the Japanese capital government lifted its request to close business until 10 p. m.
The request for an early closure of central Tokyo was first scheduled to last from August 3 to August 31, and then lasted for two weeks.
Yoshihide Suga, who was selected as the new Japanese prime minister on Wednesday, faces a series of demanding primary situations early in his term. Among the most urgent are the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the threat of additional outbreaks as businesses begin to fully reopen.
From Saturday, the central government’s request to restrict public event space to 5,000 more people will be reduced. Theatres are currently invited to occupy no more than 50% of their capacity, up to a maximum of 5,000 more people.
The government is also considering including Tokyo in its domestic travel subsidy program as of October 1. The “Go To Travel” campaign, which targets Japan’s tourism industry, covers a component of customers’ domestic travel costs. The program began in July, but Tokyo citizens and visitors to the capital are not eligible for grants due to the prevalence of COVID-19 in the city.
The easing of restrictions comes at a time when the number of coronavirus infections appears to have peaked: across the country, the number of cases reached about 2,000 in early August, but the number fell to 301 until Tuesday, according to World Health. Organization.
Tokyo’s weekly updates last week showed that none of the baseline indicators, adding up the seven-day moving average for new cases, cases with unidentified infection resources, and severely ill patients, had increased.
But experts warn that the number of cases can happen again. Suga’s new government faces the ongoing challenge of reviving the economy and preventing an increase in infections, as well as the political factor of holding early parliamentary elections.
“Tokyo is not yet company right now” to stop the spread of the virus, Shigeru Omi, head of the government organization COVID-19, warned at a press convention on Friday. He said the actual number of reproductions – the number of other people inflamed through the average airline – is just under 1 in the capital and that “there is a resurgence option. “
He adds under pressure on his crusade for the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party that he would put into effect the plans of his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, to deal with COVID-19 as the country approaches winter flu season, which puts more pressure on medicalArrayThese plans include expanding the testing capacity and reviewing the COVID-19 classification so that some medical burdens can be reduced.
It also committed to coordination between government offices. The reaction to coronavirus has concerned many agencies, adding the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Interior, which is in the rhythm of communication with local governments.
The new prime minister will check to be informed of the unpopularity of Abe’s many policies against the coronavirus. Support for the ruling PLD fell to 36% in June from 45% in January, according to a Nikkei poll. Abe’s reaction to COVID-19 “was deficient in transparent direction and perceived as random,” Hisashi Yamada, an economist at the Japan Research Institute, said in a recent report.
Abe’s insistence on sending two cloth masks to each and every family in Japan is very derogatory. The online application procedure for obtaining donations of money had problems. Many have questioned analog reporting procedures in gyms and public hospitals. Japan’s virtual systems are down,” Suga said at a press conference on Monday.
Sign up for our newsletters to get our stories directly to your inbox.
You want an Array subscription. .