Tokyo Needs Fewer Than 70 Virus Cases in a Week to End Emergency

(Bloomberg) -- As Japan lifts the state of emergency on the majority of the country, residents in the capital Tokyo are asking when they’ll join the list of areas where the coronavirus is considered under control.

One specific condition has been revealed: fewer than 70 infections in the city in a week.

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who heads the country’s response to the virus, said Thursday the target of infections as proposed by a panel of experts is for cases to have fallen below 0.5 new infections per 100,000 people in the past week.

It’s one of the key numbers the government will be closely following, Nishimura said. That works out to fewer than 70 in the Tokyo area, which has a population of almost 14 million. Tokyo has had 180 cases in the seven days through Thursday.

“In terms of the exit, we will decide looking at if the level has properly dropped, if that level is at a small peak where we can track clusters of infections and track down people with close contact,” Nishimura said in parliament.

“The target per 100,000 people is one indicator, but we will look at many indicators in our decision, including if the PCR testing regimen in a given region is properly set up,” Nishimura added.

The government also monitors what percentage of the new cases are from paths they are unable to track.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted the state of emergency in 39 of its 47 prefectures, earlier than it had planned to, after infections fell to zero in many regions. Tokyo and several neighboring areas, as well as Osaka and Hokkaido, will remain under the state of emergency with infections are still considered too high. The government is set to evaluate that decision on May 21.

Tokyo was reported Thursday to have 30 new cases, the ninth day in a row the figures have been below 40. At the peak of the infections in mid April the capital was seeing more than 200 cases reported a day.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.