Tokyo reports 331 new coronavirus cases as Okinawa marks record high 159

Japan is set to lift its state of emergency for the remaining prefectures including Tokyo later Monday, after the government’s advisory panel had approved the step in the morning.

That would dip the nation’s gross domestic product by 0.7 percent as a rippling effect. Sponsored contents planned and edited by JT Media Enterprise Division. Re-entry ban horror stories pile up in Japan's Indian community Sunday was the highest single-day total yet.Mondays have typically seen a decrease in the number of cases, a trend that was believed to be the result of a smaller number of tests being conducted over the weekend.The Tokyo Medical Association also declared a state of medical emergency on Monday, alarmed by the possible collapse of the health care system under the strain of an overwhelming number of patients in the nation’s capital.Last month, the Diet approved provisions for the new coronavirus to be covered under special measures legislation passed in 2012, aimed at battling threats such as a novel influenza virus that had caused a pandemic in 2009.But over the last few days, calls for Abe to trigger the emergency action — including from Dr. Yoshitake Yokokura, head of the Japanese Medical Association — have become more vocal as the number of COVID-19 patients has continued to soar, particularly in urban areas.Declaring of a state of emergency won’t lead to a lockdown like those seen in some American and European cities.Following the declaration, prefectural governors in the designated areas would be authorized to “request” residents stay at home except for essential tasks, such as grocery shopping. The residents in these areas are being asked to continue cutting back human-to-human interaction by 80 percent and avoiding unnecessary outings.The government will re-evaluate whether to lift the measure in those prefectures on Thursday of next week, and in the meantime continue to request that people avoid traveling in or out of them.Regardless of location, the government will continue to remind the public to maintain social distancing and avoid crowded areas.The decision to lift the state of emergency before it was set to expire on May 31 — approved by the government panel of infectious disease experts earlier Thursday — is one of the biggest tests for the prime minister in his handling of the global pandemic, which has halted daily activities and pushed the economy to the brink of recession.On Thursday evening, Abe stressed the difficulty of keeping the new infection rate low while reopening the economy, saying that the country must work to establish new ways of life through trial and error even if the process takes time.It is unlikely that everyday life will go back to as it was before the pandemic anytime soon, he warned, noting there are neither proven vaccines nor medicines at this point.“There are no right answers anywhere in the world about the steps to take to be all right yet,” he said, adding the government will compile a secondary supplementary budget.

Japan on air: The best podcasts about the Land of the Rising Sun Sorry, but your browser needs Javascript to use this site. State of Emergency in Japan in 7 Prefectures to Last 1 Month (Updated) posted on 2020-04-06 09:20 EDT by Jennifer Sherman Declaration aimed at …

Re-entry ban horror stories pile up in Japan's Indian community Other considerations include the numbers of available hospital beds and patients in a serious condition.However, the nation faces numerous hurdles before it can achieve a return to pre-coronavirus normality.

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Residents are still asked to remain on alert and adopt what the government is calling a “new lifestyle,” including telecommuting and wearing masks.Eight prefectures — Hokkaido, Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa, Osaka, Hyogo and Kyoto — will maintain restrictions for the time being, considering their strained health care systems and fears of potential new outbreaks in urban areas that could spiral out of control. We have judged that we have met this," Prime…

Hirofumi Yoshimura has been calling for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to declare a state of emergency, at least for Tokyo and Osaka, in order to better utilize resources. The hotel has about 600 rooms. ... Osaka and five other prefectures amid the growing outbreak of COVID-19, in a step that will empower prefectures …

The three are among the eight prefectures still under the emergency status after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted the measure last week in all but eight of the 47 Japanese prefectures. Tokyo reports 331 new coronavirus cases as Okinawa marks record high 159 Episode 59: Hiroshima, 75 years after the atomic bomb Yuriko Koike, Osaka Gov. It will cover the cost of increasing the upper limit of the employment subsidy for companies from ¥8,330 per day to ¥15,000 per day for a worker.Economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is also in charge of the government’s coronavirus response, said the government will reimpose restrictions if the number of patients increases dramatically again.“We need to gradually raise the level of economic and social activities on the premise that preventative measures against infectious disease are thoroughly implemented, while taking each region’s level of infection and health care system into consideration,” Nishimura said.The panel of experts is set to unveil the criteria for rescinding the state of emergency on Thursday, expected to be the number of new patients staying at 0.5 or below per 100,000 people. Japan lifted a nationwide state of emergency over the coronavirus on Monday, gradually reopening the world's third-largest economy as government officials warned caution was still necessary to prevent another wave.

Osaka and neighboring Kyoto, Hyogo, and Nara prefectures, which are all within one hour by train of the central city of Osaka, logged over 760 new infections in total on Monday.Concerns about a lack of beds in the event of an overshoot led Osaka prefecture to issue a call for local hotels to provide rooms.