The government plans to extend the COVID-19 state of emergency, scheduled to end Tuesday, in place in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures, several sources said.
The final decision will be made Friday at a meeting of the government's task force. An extension will likely be an additional two weeks or through the end of May.
"We'd like to reach a decision [on the extension], based on the opinions of experts, by the end of this week," Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Wednesday after talks with the relevant ministers.
"The movements of people, one of our main points, have undoubtedly decreased," Suga said, stressing the effectiveness of the state of emergency.
Even so, the government seemed to have concluded that an extension is inevitable because of the continued spread of the coronavirus in areas subject to the emergency measures. It might expand the target areas, depending on the circumstances.
In areas under the state of emergency, a wide range of businesses, including restaurants that serve alcohol and department stores, have been asked to suspend operations. In principle, sports and other events should be held without spectators.
The focus this time will be on whether to reduce the scope of requests once the state of emergency is extended. Many government officials are saying it would be difficult to keep exercising such strong measures, which were intended for use only during the Golden Week holiday period.
The Tokyo metropolitan government is expected to ask the central government to extend the state of emergency. Tokyo reported 798.9 new infections per day on average in the past week, with 2,167 patients being hospitalized as of Wednesday for an increase of about 1.5 times that of the 1,462 April 1 figure.
"We will discuss our policy at a monitoring meeting [this afternoon]," Gov. Yuriko Koike said Thursday morning.
The Osaka prefectural government also decided to ask the central government to extend the emergency there, where on Wednesday 668 new cases were confirmed.
The weekly number of new infections per 100,000 people through Wednesday was 78.65, far exceeding the figure of 25, established as the most serious Stage 4 in categorizing infection levels.
The government is also considering adding Hokkaido, Fukuoka and other prefectures to the list to apply emergency-level priority measures against the coronavirus, while also planning to extend the priority measures in Tokyo's neighboring Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama prefectures. The final decision will be made Friday.
The Ibaraki, Gifu, Mie and Tokushima prefectural governments have also requested emergency-level priority measures be applied.
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