January 5 In order to cope with the continuous expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first capital of Japan, 3 prefectures, decided on the evening of the 4th to launch “state of emergency measures” from January 8, appealing to people to avoid going out after 8 p.m., and requiring catering operators to close early.
According to a report on NHK4, the heads of the government of Tokyo, Saitama Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture and Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan, decided after videoconference on the evening of the 4th that they would no longer wait for the “state of emergency declaration” of the central government of Japan.
The capital circle 1 and 3 prefectures will take “state of emergency measures” on their own to call on people to avoid going out. Officials in Japan’s capital circle require people to avoid unnecessary trips after 8 p.m. from January 8 to January 31.
As for the catering industry, the “state of emergency” requires restaurants that provide alcoholic beverages to close early to 8 p.m. from the 8th, and alcohol can be supplied until 7 p.m.
After January 12, all restaurants close early to 8 p.m., whether or not alcoholic drinks are provided. For ordinary enterprises, 1 capital city and 3 counties will set their own pandemic prevention goals, and call on enterprises to implement measures such as telecommuting, working from home, flexible attendance and so on.
Yuriko Koike, governor of Tokyo, said that the coronavirus pandemic has entered a completely different new stage, so it is necessary to completely reduce the flow of people and people-to-people contact.
She called on Tokyo people to avoid going out after 8 p.m., avoid “three secrets” (closed space, dense people, close contact between people), procurement and hospitalization should be completed in the shortest time, and avoid cross-city or cross-county movement.
Koike said that last year, the Japanese government issued an emergency declaration that the pandemic was indeed under control after the flow of people decreased, so it is now necessary to control the flow of people again to deal with the pandemic. In addition, she also called on railway transport operators to advance the departure time of the last tram.
According to NHK, from 00:00 to 20:30 local time on January 4, 3,306 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Japan, with a total of 248,515 confirmed cases. There were 48 new deaths, with a cumulative death to 3,680.
