Japanese Government Likely To Extend COVID19 State Of Emergency In 11 Prefectures -Reports

Faizan Hashmi Published January 26, 2021 | 07:30 AM

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2021) The Japanese government is mulling extending the coronavirus state of emergency introduced this month in 11 prefectures, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reports.

According to government sources cited by the newspaper, the state of emergency is unlikely to be lifted on February 7 as planned, and could be prolonged for an additional month.

"Lifting the state of emergency just to introduce it again makes no sense," one government source told Yomiuri Shimbun.

On Monday, Japan's minister in charge of the coronavirus response Yasutoshi Nishimura said as cited by the newspaper that the drop in the daily coronavirus case count in Japan does not indicate that the state of emergency would soon be lifted.

On Monday, Tokyo reported less than 700 new COVID-19 cases for the first time in almost a month.

A coronavirus state of emergency was introduced in 11 Japanese prefectures (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Tochigi, Aichi, Gifu, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Hyogo) at the start of January.