THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
April 1, 2021 at 19:13 JST
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga speaks at an April 1 government task force meeting that decided to implement pre-emergency measures for six cities. (Koichi Ueda)
A government task force on April 1 approved for the first time anti-COVID-19 pre-emergency measures that will extend over the Golden Week holidays in three prefectures.
The governors of Osaka, Hyogo and Miyagi prefectures will implement the measures from April 5 to May 5 in Osaka city, the Hyogo Prefecture cities of Kobe, Nishinomiya, Amagasaki and Ashiya, as well as Sendai, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture.
The measures, established based on the revised special measures law to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, restrict operations of certain businesses and areas in a prefecture.
“We intend to control the infections in the affected cities through a concentrated implementation of measures,” Yasutoshi Nishimura, the state minister in charge of economic revitalization who also heads the central government’s efforts on the pandemic, said at an April 1 meeting of the government panel of experts dealing with the pandemic.
Bars and restaurants in the cities covered will be asked to close operations at 8 p.m., a measure that was requested when a state of emergency was in place for the COVID-19 pandemic. Such establishments were allowed to extend their business hours until 9 p.m. after the state of emergency was lifted.
But the business hours will again be shortened under the pre-emergency measures.
In addition, residents in the six cities will be asked to refrain from visiting karaoke parlors during the day because of infection clusters that have broken out in such businesses.
The pre-emergency measures allow governors to impose administrative fines against businesses that refuse orders to shut down early.
Businesses that cooperated with requests to shorten business hours after the state of emergency was lifted received 40,000 yen ($360) a day or 1.2 million yen a month.
Nishimura said payments to businesses cooperating with the pre-emergency measures would be decided based on the scale of their operations.
Osaka posts 599 new infections; pre-emergency measures eyed
March 31, 2021
Osaka to ease business limits despite state of emergency
May 15, 2020
Tokyo to extend financial support to small business operators
May 6, 2020
Abe’s delicate balancing act in extending state of emergency
May 5, 2020
Tokyo orders 27 noncompliant businesses to close early
March 19, 2021
Okinawa issues 3rd state of emergency over spread of virus
January 20, 2021
Stories about memories of cherry blossoms solicited from readers
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series on the death of a Japanese woman that sparked a debate about criminal justice policy in the United States
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
