TOKYO (Reuters) – Coronavirus cases in the Greater Tokyo area are showing signs of creeping, Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said on Friday, raising questions about whether a state of emergency can be lifted on March 21.
The Japanese government extended the emergency declaration for Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures by 14 days last week, saying COVID-19 cases had not fallen far enough, and that new, more contagious coronavirus variants posed a threat.
A decision on whether the state of emergency in the Tokyo area, which accounts for about 30% of the Japanese population, can be lifted will finally be taken after the opinions of experts are heard, Tamura said in television remarks.
“The lifting of the measures will be based on the establishment of a system to ensure that there is no rebound in cases,” he said.
Restrictions such as shorter business hours for restaurants and pubs helped reduce new business in Tokyo on January 7 to about a tenth of a peak of 2,520 business. up to 70% from the previous week.
“The number of new positive cases has stopped declining, and we need to be very vigilant about the possibility of a revival due to mutated tribes,” Koike said during a meeting with health experts on Friday.
The average of seven days of new cases in Tokyo has stuck in the mid to high 200s since the end of February, while the daily score on Thursday for the second consecutive day exceeded 300.
Tokyo – and Japan – are in a hurry to bring coronavirus cases under control and vaccinations are well underway as they prepare for the hosting of the Summer Olympics, which would start on 23 July. In total, Japan has so far recorded about 441,000 cases of coronavirus and 8,400 deaths.
The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Japan only started with health workers last month and has been moving slowly, hampered by a lack of supply.
Japan expects to receive 9,188 cartons of vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE each week in May, or about 1.8 million vials, compared to 10,475 cartons for the whole of April, said Taro Kono, the minister in charge of the vaccination effort. , said.
“In May, we will receive 9,188 boxes every week. That will be worth about 10 million shots a week,” Kono said at a news conference. “We expect the volume to be even higher in June than in May.”
In an effort to make most of the vaccine available, Japan will use specialized syringes that can extract six doses from each Pfizer vial from the week of April 12 to vaccinate medical workers, Kono said.
The bulk of Japan’s spray supply consists of standard versions that can draw only five doses from each vial, and it raises fears that millions of doses could be wasted.
Kono did not want to provide details on the acquisition of six doses of syringes, such as which manufacturers will supply it to Japan.
Kono also said that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga would be vaccinated before traveling to the United States next month for a meeting with US President Joe Biden.
Suga will travel to the U.S. in the first half of April and will be the first foreign leader to meet Biden face-to-face, general secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters earlier.
(Reported by Rocky Swift, Chang-Ran Kim and Kiyoshi Takenaka; edited by Christian Schmollinger, Gerry Doyle and Lincoln Feast)