Japan warned on Thursday of a high risk the coronavirus would spread widely as t...
TOKYO - Japan warned on Thursday of a high risk the coronavirus would spread widely as the government prepared a taskforce to handle the crisis but the economy minister said the administration was not thinking of declaring a state of emergency now.
“I told Prime Minister Abe there is a high risk of coronavirus spreading widely,” Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told reporters after meeting Shinzo Abe and Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura. A state of emergency would allow governors in hard-hit regions to take steps such as asking people to stay home, closing schools and other public facilities and cancelling large events.
Tadashi Matsukawa, Tokyo head of fixed income investment at PineBridge Investments, said while people were panic buying in fear of a lockdown, they were unlikely to buy big-ticket items and some products might not be available anyway.‘CRITICAL TIME’ On Wednesday, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike warned of the risk of an explosive rise in infections in the capital and asked residents to avoid non-essential outings through April 12, especially over the weekend. She repeated her call on Thursday.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has asked the neighbouring prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa to ask their residents to refrain from non-urgent, non-essential travel to Tokyo, the Nikkei business daily reported.Abe has already told schools to close - although many are now preparing to reopen - and asked organisers to refrain from large-scale events, but his instructions had no formal legal basis.
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