Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida briefs reporters Feb. 9 on his administration’s plans to extend COVID-19 pre-emergency measures in 13 prefectures. (Koichi Ueda)

Confronted by surging COVID-19 cases, the government will extend pre-emergency measures in 13 prefectures, including Tokyo and neighboring Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba, beyond the Feb. 13 deadline.

A government task force approved the extension on the afternoon of Feb. 10. The extension will remain in place until March 6 and also cover Gunma, Niigata, Gifu, Aichi, Mie, Kagawa, Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Miyazaki.

In addition, Kochi Prefecture will be covered by COVID-19 measures from Feb. 12 until March 6.

The decision followed the green light given that morning to extended curbs by a panel of health experts advising the government on the crisis.

At that meeting, Daishiro Yamagiwa, the state minister in charge of pandemic policy, noted that while new COVID-19 cases were falling in some prefectures, they continued to increase elsewhere.

“The government decided to extend the measures to lessen the burden on the medical care system, given the possibility of a rise in the number of patients who develop serious symptoms in the future,” Yamagiwa said.

Pre-emergency measures will now be in place in 36 of the nation’s 47 prefectures. And with 21 prefectures facing a Feb. 20 deadline, the government will have to decide next week whether to extend or lift the steps in those areas.

While new COVID-19 cases are dropping in some prefectures, such as Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, which have been covered since Jan. 9, no such clear decrease is evident in most of the other 19 prefectures.

In addition, some prefectures have seen an increase in the number of patients developing serious symptoms.

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