Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will extend a national state of emergency over the coronavirus by a month, domestic media reports said, even as some nations began to lift restrictions.
The Nikkei newspaper said the final decision will be made after a meeting of experts on Friday and extend by a month the current declaration that runs through May 6. Regional governors are in favor of maintaining the state of emergency, Kyodo News reported Wednesday. The measure enables them to instruct businesses to close and to urge private citizens to stay in their homes as much as possible.
"If you look at whether we can say the emergency will be over on May 6, I think the situation remains severe," Abe told parliament on Wednesday. He added on Thursday that he wanted to allow people some time to prepare, rather than announcing the decision at the last minute.
Abe has urged people not to travel to visit relatives in other parts of the country during the current series of public holidays, known as Golden Week, that typically is one of the busiest travel periods.
Abe declared a state of emergency earlier this month, seeking up to an 80% decrease in person-to-person interactions to prevent an explosive surge in infections. About 14,000 people have been confirmed as infected in Japan as of Thursday, the lowest among Group of Seven leading democracies. Actual numbers are likely to be higher though, with limited testing masking the true scale of infections.
Government data has shown the emergency declaration has led to success in keeping people out of major city centers, while parks and shopping streets in some suburban areas have been packed.
While there are no penalties for failure to comply with local government directives, the number of new confirmed coronavirus cases in the world's third-largest economy appears to be on a downward trend, raising hopes that the measures have had some effect.
Tokyo, the nation's worst-hit region, for example, announced 668 new cases in the week to April 29, compared with 994 in the previous week.
Social distancing measures have taken a heavy toll on the economy, which Abe has described as unprecedented. Japanese industrial production and retail sales slid in March, and economists expect worse to come.
Among other major economies, Germany has already lifted some of its restrictions on daily life, while U.S. President Donald Trump was reported as saying Wednesday he wouldn't extend social distancing guidelines. U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, by contrast, warned that the government wouldn't move quickly to ease its lockdown.
