Hokkaido, Japan (MAY 24) : The government of Japan’s Hokkaido Prefecture is implementing stricter public measures against COVID-19, as the prefecture reported the most infections in the country on Saturday and Sunday consecutively.
Hokkaido declared a “state of emergency” on May 16, which will last until May 31.
The local government has called for the closure of shops that provide alcohol and karaoke in 10 urban areas including Sapporo and Asahikawa, and the closure of more than 1,000 square meters of facilities on weekends.
This wave of the outbreak, though, was different from the previous outbreaks concentrated in restaurants.
For example, in the past month, more than 30 mass infections occurred in Sapporo, only one happened in a restaurant, while the mass infections in schools and hospitals accounted for more than 30 percent.
The Sapporo City Health Center investigated the behavior of infected people and found that many children were infected at home after their parents were infected at restaurants, and then the infection was further spread at school.
The emergency situation being implemented in Hokkaido is mainly aimed at shortening the business hours of restaurants, which is considered necessary but not sufficient by some experts.
“I just say I exaggerated a little bit, but if you’re just walking down the street, you just get infected, that type of stuff. So community-acquired is most popular route of infection right now. It’s just traffic, people trafficking all over Japan, coming to Hokkaido, and then bringing in virus from outside of Hokkaido, that’s the reason,” said Tsukamoto Eiko, a professor at Hokkaido Medical University.
Over the past few days, the number of infected people in Hokkaido has exceeded 600 consecutively, and hospital beds in Sapporo are basically fully occupied.
Experts say the Japanese government is still facing a struggle between economic recovery and epidemic control measures.
In the first quarter of 2021, Japan’s GDP fell 5.1 percent year on month. Hokkaido, which is economically dependent on tourism, has not been bustling for more than a year, and the way out for economic recovery may still be in effective measures to control the spread of the virus.
-Reuters
