Coronavirus Japan: Tokyo braces for fresh state of emergency as cases spike

Business owners in Tokyo said on Monday they were resigned to the possible return to a state of emergency as coronavirus cases reached record highs in Japan over the year-end period.

Masako Nemoto-Deacon, managing director of the Miyabe Consultant executive coaching agency that employs three coaches in Tokyo and also has an office in London, said she had moved to conduct most of her business activities online since March and this had worked well.

“For us, the problem is more about how the pandemic getting worse will affect our clients’ business and lives,” she added.

Japanese stocks declined on the first trading day of the year as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he was considering declaring a state of emergency and would announce the extent of restrictions soon.

He also urged people to avoid unnecessary outings and said he will ask parliament to amend an act on virus management when it convenes this month. The prime minister has been in a bind over the declaration. He has so far held off on the move that could slow his push to keep the economy going while containing the virus.

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But he also seen his support rate slip with respondents in surveys saying he needs to do more to halt the spread of infections, even though Japan has the fewest Covid-19 cases of any G7 country.

Over the weekend, Tokyo’s Governor Yuriko Koike and the governors of neighbouring Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures asked the government to declare a state of emergency, which would allow local governments to direct businesses to close and to urge residents to stay in their homes, though there are no penalties for failure to comply.

Civil liberties protections enshrined in Japan’s constitution prevent implementing a lockdown enforced by police action.

Japan last declared a state of emergency in April but lifted the measures several weeks later as cases dropped. Still, a spike in cases – Japan had a record 4,520 new cases on December 31 and Tokyo saw 816 new infections on Sunday – has fuelled fears that the country’s medical system will buckle as infections continue.

Suga, in the press conference, said many new cases of unknown origin were linked to restaurants and the Tokyo government’s latest request for bars and food places to close at 8pm, rather than the current 10pm, should be effective. The “Go To Travel” domestic tourism campaign would remain suspended.

But the government still intended to host the Olympic Games postponed from last year and would begin vaccinating residents by the end of February, Suga said.

Toshihiro Nagahama, an economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, estimated that a month-long suspension of non-urgent spending by consumers in the Greater Tokyo area would reduce gross domestic product by 2.8 trillion yen (US$27 billion), or an annualised 0.5 per cent.

“The loss of GDP could throw 147,000 people out of work,” he wrote in a note.

Taisuke Yokota, a Tokyo-based entrepreneur with a variety of businesses, said he was pushing ahead a project with the Environment Ministry to open up new areas to his camping firm.

“[We want to] open ‘glamping’ [‘glamorous camping’] sites in a number of national parks and that is looking very promising for the coming summer months,” he said.

“I do not believe many people will be able to travel overseas again this summer so they will be taking vacations at home, resulting in a big opportunity for high-end camping businesses.”

Another part of his business – importing beer from Britain – had come to a standstill because of the spread of a more virulent strain of Covid-19 that has led to strict lockdown restrictions in that country.

As the brand director in Japan for The Wimbledon Brewery, Yokota is marketing the company’s range of beers and had begun to gain some traction in the market immediately before the pandemic broke out.

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“As well as the problems of shipping, the brewery itself in Wimbledon has been shut down because of the British lockdown and because they are not able to obtain all the ingredients that they need,” he said.

“We are trying to stay in touch with our partners and customers and reassure them that we will be able to resume shipments as soon as things get back to normal,” he said. “Until then, we just have to keep going, follow the government’s rules and hope that everything improves soon.”

Reporting by Bloomberg and Reuters