Photo/Illutration Kanagawa Governor Yuji Kuroiwa speaks at a task force meeting at the prefectural government office on Aug. 17. (Yushin Adachi)

Prefectural governors are sharply criticizing the central government for not taking stronger measures to fend off the most recent surge in novel coronavirus infections.

The government has decided to extend the duration of the state of emergency and add seven more prefectures to the list of places covered by it, as the more powerful Delta variant spreads across the nation at a rapid clip. It also said it will strongly urge people to reduce by half the number of outings they make to crowded areas.

But its aim is mainly to restrict entry to commercial facilities and the food floors of department stores, which falls short of the response prefectural leaders are looking for.

“When you look at the infection situation today for Tokyo, its metropolitan area and other areas across Japan, can the government curb the spread of the infection with such a measure?” Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura rhetorically asked reporters on Aug. 17. “I think that they should impose stronger measures.”

Yoshimura also said if the bed occupancy rate for patients with serious conditions reaches 50 percent in Osaka Prefecture, he will consider asking large commercial facilities to suspend their businesses and business operators to cancel their events.

“We should do something like a lockdown,” he said.

The governments of Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa asked the central government to introduce measures to strongly curb foot traffic at department stores and elsewhere and impose restrictions on using railways and airlines.

“I am very disappointed that the central government could not take drastic measures to curb foot traffic,” Kanagawa Governor Yuji Kuroiwa said at a task force meeting on Aug. 17.

“Governors’ voices were not reflected in the measures,” he told reporters. “I felt a gap in perception (between us and) the central government. It’s shocking.”

The state of emergency will take effect in Ibaraki Prefecture on Aug. 20. But the prefecture currently remains under pre-emergency measures, even though it asked the government to issue a state of emergency for the prefecture on Aug. 3.

The daily average of new cases for the week in the prefecture was 189 as of Aug. 3. That increased to 266 cases as of Aug. 17.

The prefectural government again asked the central government to declare a state of emergency on Aug. 13.

On Aug. 16, Ibaraki Governor Kazuhiko Oigawa declared a local state of emergency.

“The situation has reached a disastrous level,” he said.

A senior official from the Ibaraki prefectural government said the state of emergency took too long to be issued for the prefecture.

“I think the timing was late,” the official said. “I believe that they knew the pace of transmission is faster due to the Delta variant. They should do their measures all at once, not dole them out.”

(This article was written by Hiroshi Ishizuka and Kayoko Geji.)

Related News