TOKYO (Reuters) – Osaka will ask the Japanese government to declare a state of emergency in an effort to reverse the rise in coronavirus cases, the governor of the country’s third-most populous prefecture said on Monday.
Osaka and several other prefectures have been in a “quasi-emergency” state for two weeks, with targeted measures aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19.
“The fruits of these measures should be appearing now, but when we look at the number of infections from yesterday, it was 1,220 cases, which is a record high,” Hirofumi Yoshimura told reporters in comments carried online.
“Medical services are also in a dire state, and we’ve decided that we need a state of emergency.”
(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
