Japan plans binding COVID measures
PM gives word on day virus kills legislator, 53
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he plans to submit legislation that will make coronavirus measures legally binding for businesses, punish violators and include economic compensation as his government struggles to slow an ongoing upsurge.
Japan had a state of emergency in April and May, with nonbinding requests for people to stay home and businesses to close, but people have become complacent about the pandemic, and store owners have become less cooperative because of the economic impact.
Suga said experts are discussing the legislation to make it more effectively enforced, and he hopes to submit the bill for parliamentary approval “as soon as possible” next year.
On Monday, Japan reported its first member of parliament to die from the coronavirus. Yuichiro Hata, 53, also had served as transport minister under a now-defunct opposition party.
He developed a slight fever Thursday and planned to be tested for the virus as a precaution, but his condition suddenly worsened on Sunday, said Tetsuro Fukuyama, secretary general of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, to which Hata belonged. Hata was the son of late Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata, who headed an opposition-led government in 1994.
Fukuyama said he hopes Hata’s death will raise public awareness of the danger of the virus.
“He was still just over 50 and his condition worsened so quickly. I feel strongly that we really should not underestimate the risk of the coronavirus,” he said.
In other developments:
South Korea confirmed its first cases of a more contagious variant of COVID-19 that was first identified in the United Kingdom. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Monday that the cases are in a family of three people who came to South Korea on Dec. 22.
They arrived a day before South Korea halted air travel from Britain until Dec. 31. The three people, who reside in the U.K., are under quarantine in South Korea. Authorities have banned New Year’s Eve revelers from congregating in Sydney’s downtown harborside to see the celebrated fireworks.
New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Monday that people who live in the city center can invite up to 10 guests to their homes to celebrate. The guests will have to apply for permits to enter the area. The head of the World Health Organization said it’s important to step up genomic sequencing worldwide to ensure that new variants of the coronavirus are detected as the pandemic enters its second year.
WHO Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at an online news conference Monday from Geneva that “there will be setbacks and new challenges in the year ahead, for example new variants of COVID-19 and helping people who are tired of the pandemic continue to combat it.”