Coronavirus: Japan declares state of emergency, 18 Tokyo doctors infected after dinner party

Local governors in Tokyo and six other parts of the country can now enforce stricter measures as Covid-19 infections rise

The trainee doctors at Keio University Hospital defied requests not to socialise in groups, with 99 of them now in self-isolation

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attends a parliamentary session in Tokyo, before declaring a state of emergency in the capital and other big cities in view of a recent surge in coronavirus infections. Photo: Kyodo

Published: 4:33pm, 7 Apr 2020Updated: 6:32am, 8 Apr 2020

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday declared a state of emergency to fight new coronavirus infections in major population centres and unveiled a stimulus package he described as among the world’s biggest to soften the economic blow.

The state of emergency, giving authorities more power to press people to stay at home and businesses to close, will last through May 6 and be imposed in the capital, Tokyo, and six other prefectures – Osaka, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Hyogo and Fukuoka – accounting for about 44 per cent of Japan’s population.

“The most important thing now is for each citizen to change our actions,” Abe said in televised comments made at a meeting of a government coronavirus task force. “If each of us can reduce contact with other people by at least 70 per cent, and ideally by 80 per cent, we should be able to see a peak in the number of infections in two weeks,” he said.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

“We have decided to declare a state of emergency because we’ve judged that a fast spread of the coronavirus nationwide would have an enormous impact on lives and the economy,” Abe said.

“It is no exaggeration to say that Japan’s economy, and the world economy, is facing the biggest crisis since postwar right now. We will protect the employment and life at all costs,” Abe told a news conference.

The government also approved a stimulus package worth 108.2 trillion yen (US$993 billion) – equal to 20 per cent of Japan’s economic output – to cushion the impact of the epidemic on the world’s third-largest economy.