After Japan appeared to have brought the COVID-19 outbreak under control in late May, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acclaimed his country’s response as a “model” for the rest of the world.
Japan had avoided an explosion in cases and without the compulsory lockdowns imposed in Europe and the US, he said.
Abe lifted the seven-week state of emergency, enabling bars and restaurants that had voluntarily closed to reopen for business. Plans were made to allow indoor events with up to 5,000 attendees and the media trailed the launch of an economy-boosting nationwide tourism campaign.
However, as it prepares for the Obon public holiday from Thursday to Saturday, when millions of people traditionally return to their hometowns, Japan is struggling to address record rises in COVID-19 cases amid renewed warnings about pressure on its health service, and its largely silent leader has been accused of abandoning his post.
Tokyo alone has reported more than 200 cases per day for the past 10 days, including a record 472 on Saturday last week and 360 on Thursday. Other urban hotspots are reporting similar surges in new infections, prompting local leaders to take action while ministers caution against any overreaction.
Political analysts speculate that Abe has settled on a laissez-faire approach, rather than make tough decisions on new restrictions that could send the world’s third-biggest economy, already officially in recession, deeper into the mire.
“In one sentence, the government’s supposed unstated position — often referred to as ‘with coronavirus’ — is that the authorities will provide the healthcare, medicine and vaccines, but if you get infected that’s on you,” Ryutsu Keizai University political science professor Takashi Ryuzaki told the Japan Times.
The public appears to be losing faith, with a poll published on Monday showing that 61 percent disapproved of the Cabinet’s handling of the pandemic, while 26 percent approved. Abe’s personal approval rating plummeted to a record low of 35 percent, while more than 60 percent of respondents said that he should declare a second state of emergency.
Disturbed by the surge in infections, some local leaders are refusing to wait for guidance from Tokyo. Aichi Prefecture, which is in the midst of a surge centered on the industrial city of Nagoya, has declared a state of emergency, as has Okinawa, where cases have been traced to US military bases.
In Osaka, the second-worst-affected prefecture, Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura prompted panic-buying of an over-the-counter gargling medicine this week after claiming, with scant medical evidence, that it made people who had mild COVID-19 symptoms less infectious.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has requested restaurants and karaoke venues where alcohol is served to close early, at 10pm, until the end of this month, with a one-off payment of ￥200,000 (US$1,888) available to businesses that comply.
She has also called on Tokyo’s 14 million residents not to make travel plans over Obon, with tomorrow being a public holiday, amid signs that the virus has taken hold in regions that had previously avoided the worst of the outbreak.
Iwate, a northern prefecture that had gone months without registering a single case, last week reported its first infections.
Concern still centers on the capital, where early clusters linked to young people associated with its host and hostess club scene have been joined by rising infections traced to after-work drinking sessions, where people let slip their masks — and their avoidance of the “three Cs”: closed spaces, crowds and close contact.
Tokyo accounts for one-third of the country’s tally of 44,837 cases. The country had recorded 1,042 deaths as of yesterday.
Tokyo residents were hastily excluded from the heavily subsidized Go To tourism campaign, but the government encouraged the rest of the country to take part, even after one of its experts cautioned against the scheme while cases were sharply rising.
Abe on Thursday attended a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, but has not held a news briefing for more than a month, leaving most of the talking to Cabinet members.
Government officials this week dismissed claims made in a weekly magazine that Abe, whose first term as prime minister was blighted by a chronic bowel disease, had been forced to slow down after vomiting blood early last month.
He has ditched the much-derided symbol of his COVID-19 response, swapping his “Abenomask” — one of the tiny face coverings that the government sent to tens of millions of households — for a larger alternative.
Officials continue to dismiss calls for tougher measures, pointing out that wider testing is inevitably producing more positive diagnoses, and that the number of serious cases and deaths remains much lower than in April, when Abe declared a state of emergency.
Abe has ruled out a return to the stricter measures that helped Japan emerge from the initial outbreak comparatively unscathed, said Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo.
“The pandemic has been a severe stress test for leaders everywhere, but in the eyes of the Japanese public, Abe has failed to provide leadership and a coherent response,” Kingston said. “His overall response has been shambolic. He has consistently treated this more like a PR [public relations] crisis rather than a public health problem, and has prioritized reopening the economy at the expense of containing the outbreak.”
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