Two weeks have passed since the government declared a state of emergency in seven prefectures on April 7, following the spread of the new coronavirus. The city lost its liveliness, and life completely changed as people are unsure about the future and unsure about how to live their lives.
Many shops close their doors around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the Akabane Ichibangai shopping district in Kita Ward, Tokyo. Yakiton Daio Akabane restaurant is an exception.
"It's hard to close my restaurant when I think about my employees and rent. I just have to deal with being in debt and just barely scraping by," said Hiroaki Shinohara, 51, manager of the restaurant, which continues to operate.
The Tokyo metropolitan government, which has more than 3,000 people infected with the virus, has asked a wide range of businesses to close their offices and asked restaurants, including izakaya Japanese-style pubs, to shorten their hours.
The restaurant, which has about 60 seats on the first and second floors, used to be nearly full of customers until midnight on weekends, but now only the first floor is open, and only until 8 p.m. To make up for the limited number of seats, the restaurant is focusing on accepting takeout orders such as kushiyaki (grilled skewers), selling bento lunch boxes and taking orders for delivery in cooperation with other stores in the shopping district.
Following the declaration, internet cafes were also asked to close. Kanagawa Prefecture has made Kanagawa Prefectural Budokan hall in Yokohama available to those who lived in internet cafes, from April 11 to May 6. One of the users, a 56-year-old temporary employee, arrived at the hall on April 11. An auto parts factory, where he was employed in Yokohama, stopped operations on April 14 and he lost his income. Several days later, he only had several 10-yen coins in his wallet and was unable to repair his broken phone.
Budokan does not provide meals, and for the past few days, he has filled his stomach with canned coffee and sweets that were donated. The plant is scheduled to resume operations early next month, but he is unsure if that will actually happen.
"Sometimes, I can't sleep at night because I'm too worried," he said.
Even after the declaration, some people continue to work despite fears of infection.
An office employee from Tokyo's Kita Ward, 31, works for a company near JR Shinagawa Station. He deals with the personal information of many people, making it difficult for him to work from home. In an effort to reduce the risk of infection while commuting to work, he starts work two hours later than usual.
Every morning at JR Shinagawa Station, there are crowds of people, and the congestion doesn't seem to have changed too much since two weeks prior. Supermarkets near his home have a long line of people on weekends, and he wonders if we can "really stop the spread of infection."
In the medical field, diagnosing patients continue to make doctors and nurses nervous.
At Mimihara Ohtori Clinic in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, about 40 doctors and nurses see more than 200 outpatients a day on average. The clinic requires patients to make appointments, but if an appointment is made by patients with fever, the employees at the clinic become nervous. They wear goggles, gloves and a mask but masks are expected to run out at the end of this month. They will have to use the same mask and only change the gauze on the inside.
"I'm getting more and more worried that I may become infected with the virus tomorrow, but medical staff cannot take time off, especially because of the severe situation. We want the government to provide medical supplies as soon as possible," said Nobuaki Ikeda, 70, who is head of the clinic.
Captions
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Hiroaki Shinohara, manager of Yakiton Daio Akabane, waits for customers in front of the restaurant in a deserted shopping district in Kita Ward, Tokyo, on Tuesday.
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Private spaces made of partitions for people who have no place to stay, such as those who used to live in internet cafes, are seen at the Kanagawa Prefectural Budokan on Monday.
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