The government is set to lift the state of emergency for three prefectures in the Kansai region later Thursday because they have met the required infection reduction targets.
On Thursday morning, the government presented the plan for Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures to the Advisory Committee on the Basic Action Plan, which decided that lifting the state of emergency was appropriate. The official decision to lift the state of emergency will be made Thursday evening by the government's Headquarters for Novel Coronavirus Disease Control.
The state of emergency will remain in place for Hokkaido, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba prefectures.
The government policy is to comprehensively assess whether the state of emergency can be lifted based on criteria that include the number of new infections, the availability of medical care services for coronavirus patients, and the system for conducting PCR tests and tracking infection cases. The government is placing particular emphasis on one target of having the number of new infections per 100,000 people in the prefecture during the most recent week be around or below 0.5.
At Thursday's committee meeting, Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of economic revitalization, said the three Kansai prefectures had met all the criteria -- including for the number of new infections -- required to have the state of emergency lifted. "It can be judged that lifting the declaration is appropriate," Nishimura said.
After the meeting, Nishimura said he had gained support for lifting the state of emergency for Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures. The formerly nationwide state of emergency was lifted for 39 other prefectures on May 14.
Although Tokyo and four other prefectures that will remain under the state of emergency have met certain conditions, including ones regarding the medical services they can provide, Hokkaido, Tokyo and Kanagawa were still above the 0.5 threshold as of Wednesday. Chiba and Saitama prefectures had a rate of below 0.5, but given that many residents of these prefectures commute to Tokyo for work and other reasons, lifting the state of emergency there would cause flows of people from Tokyo to increase. "That could cause infection numbers to jump again," a government source said.
Nishimura had previously leaned toward the idea of considering Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba as one large area for which the state of emergency would be lifted together because they are in the same economic and life activities area.
The number of new infections has fallen in those prefectures, as well as in Hokkaido, and thus the government plans to consider lifting the state of emergency before its initially scheduled end on May 31. On May 14, Tokyo reported 30 new cases and Kanagawa had 32, which bumped up their numbers per 100,000 people for the week. Both have had fewer than 20 cases each day since May 15, and if this trend continues, they are expected to soon dip below the crucial 0.5 threshold.
Some government officials are closely watching these developments and seeking ways to completely lift the state of emergency ahead of schedule.
The Advisory Committee on the Basic Action Plan is chaired by Shigeru Omi, head of the Japan Community Health care Organization (JCHO).
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