The government plans to suspend acceptance of new bookings for travel under the Go To Travel campaign to destinations where the novel coronavirus is spreading, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Saturday.
"The government will take tougher measures in cooperation with governors of prefectures where the spread reached a certain level," the prime minister said at the task force held at the Prime Minister's Office.
The government is drawing up new criteria to give prefectural governors flexibility on deciding to suspend the campaign in their prefectures amid the spread of the coronavirus.
With the number of new daily cases of the virus reaching record highs in some locations, the government devised new measures at a meeting of its coronavirus task force held at the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday.
The government considers prefectures including Hokkaido -- where the number of infected people is surging -- as possible places where the demand-stimulating campaign could be suspended.
The government is making final adjustments on details of the criteria, led by the Tourism Agency. It plans to cover cancellation fees due to the suspension of the campaign.
To strike a balance between promoting economic activities and preventing infections, the government intends to continue the campaign while also allowing governors of prefectures where the infection is spreading again the discretion to temporarily stop accepting new travel under the campaign.
In order to prevent mass infections in the context of group travel, the government also plans to call for steps such as refraining from eating meals on buses.
The decision comes as the government concluded that early action would result in a less negative impact on the economy.
The government's subcommittee on the novel coronavirus -- chaired by Shigeru Omi, head of the Japan Community Health Care Organization -- made proposals Friday to the government to review its Go To Travel campaign in areas where the infection is spreading, based on prefectural leaders' opinions.
"We would like to hasten discussions by the government task force so that we can have a direction for future action," said Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of economic revitalization.
The subcommittee had previously called for the exclusion of regions from the campaign if their infection status was determined to be equivalent to Stage 3 criteria. Stage 3 is the second most serious of four levels that correspond to the degree of spread of the infection.
"Sapporo appears to already be in Stage 3, indicating the level of response needed to avoid a surge in infections," Omi said at a press conference on Friday.
Regarding the Go To Eat campaign program, Suga also said the government will ask prefectural governors to consider suspending new issuance of discounted meal tickets for restaurants and refraining from using the Go To Eat point system.
The government has lately decided to provide financial assistance to municipalities that issue "cooperation funds" to local restaurants, bars and other eating establishments that responded to the government's call for reducing business hours. It plans to ask such eating places to apply for the funds.
Meanwhile, with Monday being Labor Thanksgiving Day, the government has called for thorough infection prevention countermeasures to be taken over the three-day weekend.
Suga said at a meeting of prefectural governors on Friday: "The number of [infection] cases exceeded 2,000 recently on daily basis. We are in a situation of utmost caution."
Suga asked the governors to call for taking thorough countermeasures such as wearing masks, washing hands, and avoiding the Three Cs -- closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, for his part, urged people to wear masks when they speak during meals. "I want people to have 'quiet masked dining,' during which people speak only while wearing masks," he said at a press conference Friday.
The government is calling for restaurants nationwide to place acrylic dividers on tables and check the ventilation, and for customers to wear face shields and sit diagonally across from each other.
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