Abe declares emergency in Japan’s major centers until May 6, prepares $990bn stimulus

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday declared a state of emergency to fight new coronavirus infections in major population centers. The measure, giving authorities more power to press people to stay at home and businesses to close, will last through May 6. It will be imposed in the capital, Tokyo, and six other prefectures – accounting for about 44 percent of the country’s population.

The state of emergency will stop short of imposing a formal lockdown. “The most important thing now is for each citizen to change our actions,” Abe said at a meeting of a government task force. “If each of us can reduce contact with other people by at least 70 percent, and ideally by 80 percent, we should be able to see a peak in the number of infections in two weeks.”

The cabinet will finalize the stimulus package worth 108 trillion yen ($990 billion) – equal to 20 percent of the economic output – to soften the economic blow on the world’s third-largest economy. That exceeds the equivalent of 11 percent of US output for the stimulus package and 5 percent of output for Germany’s package.

Infections in Tokyo more than doubled to about 1,200 in the past week, with more than 80 new ones reported on Tuesday. Nationwide, cases have climbed past 4,000, with 93 deaths as of Monday, Reuters said.