As Japan continues to deal with high numbers of Covid-19 infections, including the delta variant, the state of emergency has been extended once again. Currently, the emergency is in place in 21 prefectures including Tokyo, and was set to expire on Sunday September 12. According to Kyodo News, the government has officially extended the emergency until Thursday September 30.
19 prefectures will remain under the state of emergency
The state of emergency will stay in effect in 19 prefectures. In alphabetical order, they are: Aichi, Chiba, Fukuoka, Gifu, Gunma, Hiroshima, Hokkaido, Hyogo, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Kyoto, Mie, Okinawa, Osaka, Saitama, Shiga, Shizuoka, Tochigi and Tokyo. The state of emergency has been in place since July 12 and has already been extended twice.
Two prefectures will switch from full emergency to quasi-emergency measures
Miyagi and Okayama, currently under the state of emergency, will move to quasi-emergency measures from September 13.
Six prefectures will see quasi-emergency measures extended, six will exit quasi-emergency
Meanwhile, 12 prefectures are currently under quasi-emergency measures, set to expire on September 12. Six of these will see the quasi-emergency extended until the end of the month: Fukushima, Ishikawa, Kagawa, Kagoshima, Kumamoto and Miyazaki. In some promising news, the quasi-emergency will simply end as planned in the other six prefectures, meaning they will no longer have any emergency status: Ehime, Kochi, Nagasaki, Saga, Toyama and Yamanashi.
Last week it was reported that some restrictions could be eased by November, even in places under emergency measures, allowing fully vaccinated residents to resume regular activities.
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