Tokyo to enter another COVID-19 state of emergency during Olympics

The measure, to be effective from Monday, could see the Summer Games held without spectators at venues in the capital, dealing another blow to an event that was postponed by one year due to the pandemic.

Suga is set to finalize the decision to declare a state of emergency for Tokyo as well as extend one already in place in Okinawa at a task force meeting Thursday evening.

He will hold a press conference later in the evening to explain the decision.

A quasi-state of emergency, which carries fewer restrictions on business activity and targets high-risk areas rather than entire prefectures, will be extended until Aug. 22 for Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa and Osaka.

The measure currently in place on five other prefectures -- Hokkaido, Aichi, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka -- will expire on Sunday as scheduled.

It would be Tokyo's fourth state of emergency since the start of the pandemic early last year, with the government set to prohibit restaurants from serving alcohol and maintain its request for them to close by 8 p.m. Areas under the quasi-state of emergency will also be subject to the alcohol ban, though governors can relax the rule.

«We are hoping to keep people from moving around during the summer break and the Bon holidays until vaccinations move further along,» Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of the nation's COVID-19 response, told a panel of experts.

The government had initially planned to keep the capital under a quasi-state of emergency but was forced to change course due to the sharp rise in infections.

On Wednesday, the Tokyo metropolitan government reported 920 new coronavirus cases, the most since mid-May at the peak of Japan's fourth wave and topping the figure from a week earlier for the 18th straight day.

The games organizers including the Tokyo metropolitan government, the Japanese organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee are slated to hold a virtual meeting Thursday to decide how many spectators to allow at venues.

They had previously agreed to allow up to 10,000 fans, or 50 percent of a venue's capacity, whichever is fewer, but are reviewing that plan as infections in the capital climb.

Venues in Tokyo are likely to go without spectators, and the same may apply to those in nearby prefectures, sources with knowledge of the matter have said. Events being held outside the capital include baseball and softball at Yokohama Stadium and basketball at Saitama Super Arena.

Health experts including Suga's top COVID-19 adviser, Shigeru Omi, have warned that the Olympics -- set to take place from July 23 to Aug. 8, coupled with the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus first detected in India -- could trigger a surge in infections.