NAHA, Okinawa Pref.: Okinawa Prefecture has decided to issue its own emergency declaration over the novel coronavirus while planning to ask the central government to include the southernmost Japan prefecture in its new state of emergency related to the epidemic.
The local state of emergency, starting Wednesday, will be in place until Feb. 7, with the Okinawa prefectural government calling on residents to refrain from going out for nonessential reasons. The move was announced by Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki on Tuesday.
The central government’s fresh state of emergency, slated to remain effective until Feb. 7, covers 11 of the country’s 47 prefectures–Tokyo and neighboring Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa, Tochigi, north of Tokyo, Aichi and Gifu in central Japan, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo in western Japan, and Fukuoka in southwestern Japan.
Among other prefectures, Ibaraki, near Tochigi, Mie, adjacent to Aichi, and Kumamoto and Miyazaki in southwestern Japan have issued their own coronavirus emergency declarations. The southwestern prefecture of Nagasaki declared a state of emergency for the city of Nagasaki, the prefecture’s capital, on Saturday.
“Medical resources in Okinawa, an island prefecture, are limited,” Tamaki told a press conference, adding, “The local medical system is on the verge of collapse.”
Under the local state of emergency, eating and drinking establishments in all municipalities in Okinawa will be asked to end daily operations by 8 p.m. between Friday and Feb. 7. Compliant businesses will receive 680,000 yen in aid.
Okinawa residents are asked to avoid nonessential travel to remote islands in the prefecture, as well as to the prefectures under the central government’s state of emergency and the areas covered by the local emergency declarations.
In Okinawa, the daily number of newly confirmed coronavirus cases topped 100 on Saturday and Tuesday, coming to 130 and 113, respectively.
The occupancy rate for hospital beds for severely ill coronavirus patients in the prefecture has risen to 66.7 percent.
JIJI Press