TOKYO: The Japanese government plans to place 18 more prefectures in the COVID-19 pre-emergency stage, Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio told reporters Monday.

The 18 are Hokkaido, Aomori, Yamagata, Fukushima, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Nagano, Shizuoka, Ishikawa, Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Okayama, Shimane, Fukuoka, Oita, Saga and Kagoshima.

The government will put the prefectures under the pre-emergency scheme from Thursday to Feb. 20.

After the designation, 34 prefectures, or more than 70 pct of the 47 in the country, will be in the pre-emergency stage.

On Tuesday, the government will formally decide the pre-emergency expansion at a meeting of its coronavirus response headquarters after consulting with experts.

The existing pre-emergency measures in Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and Okinawa prefectures will be extended until Feb. 20, beyond the current expiration date of Jan. 31.

At a press conference Monday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said that the occupancy rate of hospital beds for coronavirus patients in the three prefectures remains high at 40-60 pct.

“The pace of the spread of the infections is obviously slowing in some municipalities,” Kishida said.

But “it will be difficult to maintain social and economic activities” if the numbers of infection cases and close contacts keep growing, Kishida added, asking for cooperation to restrict the number of people getting together at eating and event venues and curb people’s movements.

In response to shortages of coronavirus test kits, Kishida pledged to make kits for 800,000 tests available per day by asking makers to boost production.

Aiming to ease concerns about cross-vaccination and accelerate the rollout of booster shots, Kishida said he will get a shot of Moderna Inc.’s vaccine for the booster after he received two shots of Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine.

The occupancy of hospital beds for severely ill patients, assistance to coronavirus carriers not admitted to hospitals and the continuance of social and economic activities are important in dealing with the omicron variant, he said.

JIJI Press