Photo/Illutration A sign at this Tokyo supermarket says business operations are closed due to the coronavirus outbreak. (Tomohiro Yamamoto)

The government on April 23 warned that the coronavirus outbreak was causing the economy to worsen rapidly and fall into an extremely severe situation, the most dire outlook in more than a decade.

The use of “worsening” in the monthly economic assessment by the government is the first since May 2009, after the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.

With economic activity severely curtailed by the spread of the coronavirus and the declaration of a state of emergency by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the government for the second straight month greatly downgraded its assessment of economic activity.

The last time two consecutive monthly economic reports offered a downgraded assessment was in October 2014.

Until the March economic assessment, the government had used “recovery” in all its monthly reports, but deleted the term for the first time in six years and nine months due to the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.

The March report said the economy was in a severe situation, but with various economic indicators continuing to show a decline for the second straight month, the April report downgraded its description of the economy and said the situation was worsening.

It also used the term “extremely severe” for the first time in 21 years. The last time was in June 1999 in the wake of the Asian currency crisis.