Tokyo will urge residents to avoid non-essential outings and ask shops serving alcohol to close earlier as the number of coronavirus infections soars in Japan, local media reported Wednesday (Nov.25).
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Japan has so far been relatively spared from the Covid-19 pandemic - with just over 2,000 deaths and 135,400 infections, according to official figures - and it has not imposed the containment measures observed elsewhere.
But he now faces a record number of daily infections.
The city of Tokyo has already raised its alert level to its maximum level and the national television channel NHK has indicated that its governor Yuriko Koike will call on residents to "
avoid unnecessary and non-urgent outings
".
The official was due to speak at a press conference later Wednesday after an advisory group meeting.
Other local media reported that Koike would also ask shops serving alcohol to close at 10 p.m. from Saturday for about three weeks.
Companies that comply could benefit from compensation.
None of these appeals will be binding.
Even the state of emergency declared in the spring during the first peak of infections has not sanctioned residents who defied calls to stay at home or establishments that refused to close their doors.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said last week that Japan was on "high
alert
" to the coronavirus and his government was forced to back down on a controversial campaign to encourage domestic tourism.
Suga had initially insisted that he would not reduce the scale of this so-called “
Go To
”
campaign
, but apart from allowing each region to choose not to participate.
The cities of Osaka and Sapporo, which were particularly affected, were thus excluded from the program.
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