Following the surge of COVID-19 infected cases in the country's major cities, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, according to a new report, is preparing to declare a month-long state of emergency. The declaration would cover the seven prefectures, including Osaka and Tokyo. The Prime Minister also shared that Japan would release a much bigger stimulus package worth 108 trillion yen or approximately $988 billion.
Japan's State Of Emergency Details
Bloomberg reports that the state of emergency declaration will be made as early as Tuesday. It will include Fukuoka, Hyogo, Chiba, Saitama, and Kanagawa prefectures. This move would give the local government extra power to attempt to contain the COVID-19 virus and would include encouraging residents to stay home.
The State of Emergency, if declared, could last between three weeks and one month. This would be the first time that Japan would have a declaration of this kind. But, for this to take effect, a panel of experts tasked to handle COVID-19 countermeasures to talk about the proposed move.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government will have to set a meeting to the task force in charge of fighting the COVID-19 virus and to confirm the plan while preparing for the implementation of the State of Emergency declaration. The panel of experts will evaluate whether the COVID-19 is threatening the health and lives of the public and if it is "threatening serious damage to the lives and finances of the public through a rapid, nationwide spread of the virus."
If these requirements are met, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could declare the State of Emergency in Japan. Upon the declaration of the State of Emergency, the governors of the prefectures included in the proclamation can urge the residents to stay home. Schools, department stores, shopping malls, movie theaters could be ordered to shut down temporarily. Events could also get suspended when the nation is in the State of Emergency.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been reluctant to declare the State of Emergency in Japan. However, there has been an increase in COVID-19 infected cases in the country over the past days. In Japan's capital, there are 145 new COVID-19 cases recorded in just one day.
So far, Japan has reached the 1,000 mark on the number of COVID-19 infected cases. Additionally, there are also cases where the route of infections is unknown. This could mean that it is getting hard to contain the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus. At the time of this writing, there are over a million COVID-19 infected cases all over the world.
