Japan: Abe lifts COVID-19 state of emergency
Tokyo/UNI: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday lifted the state of emergency, imposed to contain the coronavirus pandemic, in the remaining five prefectures, including Tokyo and Hokkaido.
This covers Tokyo, the prefectures of Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama, as well as Hokkaido in northern Japan.The government has now lifted the emergency across the whole of the country, allowing citizens to go out freely and businesses to resume operations.
With the number of infections seemingly past a peak, Abe had earlier lifted the emergency over the pneumonia-causing virus in 42 of the nation's 47 prefectures.This means that the state of emergency is now lifted across the whole of Japan.
"The state of emergency is lifted on all the country's territory," Abe said at a press conference, according to Kyodo News.Japan's Economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told the panel at a meeting on Monday, that the government will establish a transitional period and assess the infection situation every three weeks.
People will be asked to refrain from crossing prefectural borders until the end of May, according to Nishimura, who is in charge of the virus emergency response.
The Japanese government declared the state of emergency for Tokyo and six neighboring prefectures in early April and later expanded it to cover the entire country.
Earlier in May, the restrictions were lifted in nearly all of the country's 47 prefectures.
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