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A panel of medical experts has recommended that the Japanese government continue requesting the nation to continue to follow social restrictions to tackle the spread of the COVID-19 and they believe the state of emergency should be extended, government sources said Friday.
According to the sources, the panel made their assessment that the emergency period should be extended for at least one month beyond the current deadline of May 6, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe likely to announce the extension formally on Monday.
Japanese Economic Revitalization Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told a press briefing after the panel's meeting that the experts believe the social restrictions should stay in place to prevent a new surge in coronavirus infections.
Nishimura, also minister in charge of the government's response to the pandemic, said the experts warned that local and central government's stay-at-home requests and other restrictions to curb the spread of the virus should not be eased.
He added that the experts said that restrictions could not be eased until people further reduce contact with each other to a level at which the spread of the virus drops to a certain level.
The experts, government sources said, have judged that Japanese people need to change their daily behavior "completely" for the number of new infections to decline to a level where social restrictions can begin to be lifted.
Nishimura indicated that the easing of restrictions is deemed possible in the future, but may be done in a phased and on a geographical basis, depending on regions' infection rates and other pertinent factors such as citizens' adherence to social distancing requests and the cutting of human contact by 80 percent and commuting by 70 percent.
"If the request for behavioral change is relaxed before we see a sufficient reduction in cases, the chances are that we will see an expansion phase again and efforts made by each person will go down the drain," Nishimura said.
The exact length of the extension of the state of emergency will be announced by Abe on Monday, after he consults with an advisory panel.
Abe first declared a month-long state of emergency for Tokyo and six other prefectures on April 7, but this was expanded to cover the entire nation on April 16, in part to dissuade large numbers of people crossing prefectural lines during the five-day Golden Week holidays, which begin this weekend.
The government has expressed its fears that people traveling during the holidays will spread the virus to rural areas and seasonal holiday hotspots in Japan. Such a scenario would overwhelm an already strained healthcare system, and could be the start of a second wave of infections across Japan or the catalyst behind a serious number of clustered infections that will be hard to trace, government officials have said.
The medical experts have underscored the continued need for the Japanese population, regardless of their geographical location, to avoiding closed, crowded places and places where they could come into close-contact with others.
Along with social distancing measures, they have also urged the public of the importance of maintaining high standards of physical hygiene, including the absolute necessity of often and rigorous hand-washing.
The panel's recommendations and Abe's likely extending the national state of emergency next week come as the health ministry and local authorities said Friday evening that coronavirus cases in Japan increased by 261 to 14,566.
The figures included a significant resurgence of cases in Tokyo of 165 new COVID-19 infections, after recording less than 50 cases over the past two days.
The nationwide death toll from the virus has now increased to a total of 490, including those from a cruise ship that was quarantined in Yokohama near Tokyo, the latest figures showed.
In Tokyo, the epicenter of Japan's outbreak, the number of COVID-19 cases has increased to 4,317 confirmed infections, accounting for more than one-third of all COVID-19 cases across the nation, followed by Osaka Prefecture with 1,639 infections.
Kanagawa Prefecture, meanwhile, has recorded 1,038 infections, Saitama Prefecture 865 infections, Chiba Prefecture 841 cases, Hokkaido Prefecture 790 infections, while Hokkaido Prefecture has recorded 790 cases of COVID-19, according to the latest figures Friday evening.
The health ministry also said there are currently a total of 332 patients considered severely ill and are on ventilators to receive respiratory assistance or have been admitted to intensive care units for medical treatment.
The ministry also said that in total 4,632 people have been discharged from hospitals after their symptoms improved, according to the latest figures.
