Faced with a still worrying health crisis, the Japanese government was preparing on Friday, May 7 to extend until the end of the month the state of emergency in four departments, including that of Tokyo, supposed to host the Olympic Games this summer.
Reinstated since April 25 in Tokyo and three other departments in the west of the country (Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo), the state of emergency will undoubtedly be extended until May 31, when it was initially supposed to end next Tuesday, according to the Japanese media.
The departments of Aichi (center) and Fukuoka (southwest) should also be added to the device, activated for the third time in the country in just over a year.
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The Japanese state of emergency provides for less severe restrictions than those on containments seen elsewhere in the world. It consists in imposing the temporary closure of bars and restaurants serving alcohol, under penalty of a fine, and in asking certain other businesses, such as department stores, to lower the curtain. Sporting events are also being held behind closed doors for the moment.
Japan is facing a fourth local wave of the coronavirus, currently with some 5,300 new cases on a weekly average.
The scale of the pandemic thus remains limited compared to other regions of the world, but the health crisis is exhausting the Japanese hospital system, especially as the vaccination campaign is progressing only very slowly.
“We are not in a situation where we can lift the state of emergency.
I think we need to extend it, ”
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said Thursday.
On the same line, the governor of Osaka, Hirofumi Yoshimura, pointed out that the medical system was reaching a
“breaking point”
.
Read also: Covid-19: Japan launches its vaccination campaign
The new outbreak of infections also represents a threat for the Tokyo Olympics (July 23-August 8), postponed for a year in 2020 because of the pandemic. Fearing that the Olympics will further worsen the health situation in the country, a majority of Japanese are opposed to their holding this summer, wanting either a new postponement or an outright cancellation, according to all polls for several months. Spectators from abroad have already been excluded from the Olympics, and the organizers have yet to decide the question of the public residing in Japan.
The health situation is already complicating the running of the Games test events, as well as that of the Olympic torch relay, which started at the end of March in Japan. Some runners give up participating, and many stages are organized behind closed doors by the local authorities. The governor of the department of Fukuoka announced on Friday such an intention in his territory.
