Japan to decide on extension of virus emergency by weekend

TOKYO, May 5 Kyodo - Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday the government would make a decision by the end of this week on whether to extend the state of emergency currently in effect in Tokyo and a number of western Japan prefectures beyond its May 11 end date. Following a meeting with ministers involved in the government's coronavirus response, Suga told reporters that the emergency declaration's impact had started to show as "the number of people moving around has undoubtedly decreased." The government needs to seek health experts' opinions before making a decision, Suga added. Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura had indicated a day earlier that he would ask the central government to extend the current COVID-19 state of emergency in the western Japan metropolis as the number of infections has not shown a significant decrease. Suga has declared a fresh state of emergency in Tokyo and the western prefectures of Osaka, Hyogo and Kyoto, effective from April 25 through May 11 amid a fourth wave of infections. Under the third state of emergency, authorities have imposed stricter anti-virus measures including requiring restaurants serving alcohol and large shopping facilities to close. Tokyo reported on Wednesday 621 new daily coronavirus cases, the metropolitan government said. The figure was slightly higher than the 609 cases confirmed on Tuesday but concerns remain over increasing reports of infections with highly contagious variants of the virus in the capital and other areas. Tokyo's seven-day rolling average of infections per day has risen to 798.9, up 5.3 percent from the previous seven-day period. Its cumulative total stands at 142,943. Wednesday marked the last day of the Golden Week holiday period that started last Thursday, with pre-pandemic crowd levels largely absent from trains, flights and expressways. At the shinkansen bullet train platform at Shin-Osaka Station, which was sparsely populated on Wednesday morning, a 41-year-old man returning to Tokyo after a trip to his hometown of Osaka, said, "I basically stayed at home. I couldn't go out and have fun, so it didn't feel like the usual Golden Week." A 23-year-old woman living in Saitama Prefecture said she decided to head back home to Nara Prefecture over Golden Week, her first big holiday since becoming a working adult, as her parents seemed to miss her. But due to fear of infection, she spent most of the time at home. "My parents were happy and I had fun, but I didn't feel satisfied," she said. According to Japan Railway operators, there were many empty seats on bullet train routes across Japan on Wednesday. Only 30 percent of non-reserved seats on a Nozomi bullet train on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line that left Shin-Osaka Station just after 9 a.m. on Wednesday were occupied, and other bullet train lines bound for Tokyo saw an even lower rate of 5 percent. Meanwhile, the seat occupancy rates based on bookings for Wednesday's flights to Tokyo on All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines were 74.0 percent and 73.9 percent respectively, the airlines' reservation statuses showed on April 23. ==Kyodo