Apr 08 (Japan Today) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared on Tuesday night a state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus after an alarming growth in cases in urban areas.
The declaration, effective through May 6, will enable prefectural governors to take stronger preventive steps, ranging from instructing citizens to stay at home to restricting the operation of schools and other facilities, although there are no legal penalties for noncompliance.
Roughly 56 million people, or about 45 percent of the country's total population, in Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama as well as in Osaka, Hyogo and Fukuoka, will be asked to refrain from nonessential outings. Grocery shopping, visits to hospitals and commuting are excluded.
But they will be asked to stay away from bars, karaoke places and live music clubs to lower the risk of transmission. Public transportation services will be available, although Abe asked citizens in the designated prefectures to hold off on going to other parts of the country.
Aichi Prefecture, home to the big city of Nagoya which has a population over 2.2 million, was not among the seven prefectures included in the state of emergency.
Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy, told a meeting of a parliamentary panel that the government discussed whether the three prefectures of Aichi, Hokkaido and Kyoto should be on the list as well, but decided not to include them due partly to the relatively slow pace of increase in virus infections in these areas.
Trains will run as usual and daily necessities such as toilet paper will continue to be manufactured for stable supply in Japan, business operators said Tuesday, after the government declared a state of emergency to step up efforts to prevent a further escalation in the coronavirus outbreak.
Face masks, which have been running out due to surging demand, meanwhile, may still take time to reach store shelves as prefectural governors will be allowed under the declaration, effective through May 6, to request companies to preferentially sell medical supplies and food to their governments.
East Japan Railway Co, which serves Tokyo and surrounding areas, said Tuesday it will continue normal operations for now and is not planning to cut services or move up the schedules of last trains.
As for future operations, President Yuji Fukasawa said the company will take into account the number of passengers, which has been falling as the government has asked people to stay at home.
Operators of shinkansen bullet trains have also suffered declining passenger demand.
Central Japan Railway Co said it will halt 45 shinkansen services connecting Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka on May 15, 22 and 29, in addition to cutting 106 services during the Golden Week holiday period between May 1 and 6.
Kyushu Railway Co, which serves southwestern Japan, and West Japan Railway Co have also decided to halt some of their shinkansen services from May 7 to 31.
