May 11 (Japan Times) - As the nation reels from a pandemic that has paralyzed everyday life for many, some prefectures that adopted blanket measures for the state of emergency are now accelerating efforts to wind them down.
But by easing emergency restrictions, those prefectures must face the risk of allowing a respiratory disease devoid of a cure to regain strength.
The public and the central government are pressuring prefectures and municipalities to strike a delicate balance between maintaining public safety and restoring economic activity. But the rush to return to normalcy is leaving critical questions unanswered, including whether governments can reimpose restrictions fast enough if the novel coronavirus regains momentum.
While the government is expected to publicize its guidelines soon, Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura last week announced the prefecture’s own threshold for retracting requests for restrictions on outings and commerce, setting an example for other prefectures. Osaka has roughly 1,720 COVID-19 patients but its daily case count fell to nine on Friday.
The Osaka Prefectural Government listed three criteria for easing shutdown requests and said that seven consecutive days of compliance would allow measures to be eased.
The criteria are: recording fewer than 10 untraceable infections per day; keeping the rate for positive polymerase chain reaction tests under 7 percent; and keeping the rate for hospital beds occupied by seriously ill COVID-19 patients under 60 percent.
The criteria were met on Saturday. So if all goes well, Osaka could make a decision on lifting its restriction requests on Friday.
Yoshimura said the prefecture would reinstate restrictions if the number of untraceable infections grows by 1 from the previous week, there are at least five patients with untraceable infections, and positive PCR tests hit 7 percent or higher.
