Japan announced on Saturday that it is considering new emergency protocols as cases of coronavirus continue to increase.
Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said a decision would be made after government officials met with leading health experts in the country, according to Reuters.
“The national government and the three governors are of the opinion that the situation in the Tokyo area is getting worse, so that an emergency declaration may be necessary,” Nishimura said in a recent meeting with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.
Under the proposed measure, venues serving alcohol will close at 7pm and restaurants and karaoke bars will close at 8pm. Japan has previously allowed voluntary business closures and restricted travel within and outside the country instead of a strict nationwide closure, according to the newspaper.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is hesitant to call for a national emergency, originally launched at the start of the April pandemic.
Hospitalizations in Japan have increased as a result of the recent surge in coronavirus, and an infection control manager at a local hospital in Tokyo, Fumie Sakamoto, expects it to get worse.
“The Japanese government has not done much to control the infection,” Sakamoto told Reuters. ‘I would expect the [infection] the numbers will increase in the coming days, and the emergency declaration should have come earlier, probably during December or November. ”
Japan reported total According to Johns Hopkins, there have been 239,068 cases of coronavirus and 3,342 virus-related deaths since the onset of the pandemic.