The coronavirus outbreak has once again shaken Japan’s peace, prompting the government to now consider implementing an emergency response in key affected provinces.
On Sunday, Tokyo recorded 4,172 cases and the hospital admission rate rose sharply to 19.3%.
Earlier, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said they would call for restrictive measures such as ‘semi-emergency’ if the use of beds allocated for Covid-19 patients increased to 20%.
As a result, the Governors of Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa will hold meetings to discuss their response to the sixth wave of pandemics in the county which is largely due to the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Amid a nationwide resurgence of corovirus, a state of emergency has already been declared in the provinces of Okinawa, Yamaguchi and Hiroshima, effective from January 9 to the end of this month.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a meeting of the ruling party on Monday that the government would have to implement movement restrictions if existing measures could not curb the spread of the virus.
To curb the resurgence of Covid-19, the government now plans to reopen a large-scale vaccination center in Tokyo on January 31 using existing facilities used last year.
