The government's decision to put emergency-level "priority measures" in place in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Okinawa prefectures reflects growing alarm over the rapid uptick in novel coronavirus infections following the end of the second state of emergency last month, and a desire to avoid a third full-fledged state of emergency, now that the Olympics are around the corner.
"We are closely monitoring the situation with heightened vigilance," Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said at a press conference on Thursday. "We will take into account expert analysis and assessment when crafting a response to the situation in close conjunction with local governments."
A mere two and a half weeks since the state of emergency ended on March 21, the number of new daily infections in Tokyo stood at 555 on Wednesday and 545 on Thursday, surpassing the 500-mark which has come to be considered a litmus test for leveraging priority measures.
Highly contagious variants of the virus are thought to be behind the surge of infections in the Kansai region, which includes prefectures such as Osaka and Hyogo, where priority measures are already in effect.
By extending the priority measures to Tokyo and Kyoto Prefecture, the government hopes to curtail the further spread of these variants throughout the rest of Kansai and the Tokyo metropolitan area.
However, some voiced opposition to the new measures. As one senior government official said, "Tokyo has already largely been able to curb the spread of infections, unlike Osaka."
Nonetheless, the government wasted no time in responding to Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike's request to apply priority measures in the capital. Politicians and officials at the national and metropolitan level were in agreement on wanting to avoid another state of emergency, a situation feared as a worst-case scenario as the clock ticks down on the start of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer.
"The central government was eager to apply priority measures, so things have been moving very quickly," a senior Tokyo metropolitan government official said.
The central government is also mulling whether to go ahead and place other areas under the new measures, without waiting for requests from prefectural governors.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has described the priority measures as a "powerful" tool that allows governors to order businesses to shorten their operating hours and impose penalties in the event of noncompliance.
However, there is no guarantee that the measures will have the intended effect in light of the public's growing pandemic fatigue.
Some in the government have questioned whether it will even be possible to thoroughly enforce the shortened operating hours and other priority measures in Tokyo, given the city's surfeit of restaurants and bars.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties have been more vocal critics of the government's measures, which they have derided as being far too lax.
Tetsuro Fukuyama, secretary general of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said, "It is unacceptable that they are now trying to roll out the priority measures as a smokescreen because the state of emergency has just ended."
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