Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on the public Tuesday to extend the period of voluntarily refraining from holding big events "for about 10 days," until around March 19, in order to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.
He also announced a second package of emergency measures totaling 430.8 billion yen, and said that northern Italy had been added to the list of places from which Japan bans the entry of foreigners. The idea was presented at a meeting of the Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters held at the Prime Minister's Office.
Around March 19, an expert panel in the headquarters will release its analysis of the effectiveness of measures taken in Hokkaido to prevent the virus. Abe apparently set "another 10 days" of self-restraint based on the timing of this release.
"We request your cooperation to continue these measures for about 10 days until the experts pronounce a judgment," Abe said at the headquarters' meeting.
The voluntary suspension of events includes cancellation, postponement and downsizing. On Feb. 26, the government requested the public to refrain from holding events based on the assumption that "the coming one to two weeks is a critical period to prevent the spread of the outbreak," and a series of events such as professional baseball games, soccer matches and exhibitions have either been postponed or cancelled. The impact on the economy would no doubt become serious if this trend were to be extended for a long period of time.
Meanwhile, the government is banning the entry into Japan of foreigners who have visited the Lombardy region, which includes Milan and other areas in Italy, in the past two weeks. The government added San Marino -- a small country on the Italian Peninsula -- to the list, and expanded the areas in Iran. It took effect from Wednesday.
Japanese nationals who have stayed in these countries and regions are allowed to enter Japan when returning home. A ban on entry to Japan has already been applied to people who stayed in certain regions in China and South Korea.
Under the second package of emergency measures, the government will purchase protective masks exclusively for medical institutions, pay compensation to freelancers for their absence from work (4,100 yen yen per person a day), strengthen after-school childcare systems, ask local governments to reimburse parents for school meal fees, and compensate all company employees for taking days off to look after their children (up to 8,330 yen per person a day). About 270 billion yen in reserve funds from the fiscal 2019 budget will be allocated for these purposes.
The government will also loan a total of about 1.6 trillion yen to small businesses that are suffering sharp declines in sales under a newly established special loan system.
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