The 26th Meeting of the Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters

The 26th Meeting of the Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters

The 26th Meeting of the Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters On April 6, 2020, the Prime Minister held the 26th meeting of the Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters at the Prime Minister’s Office. At the meeting, the participants discussed the response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Following the discussion, the Prime Minister said, “Today, I heard the views of Dr. Omi, the Chair of the Advisory Committee on the Basic Action Policy that the number of patients is increasing, particularly in urban areas, and medical institutions are already going through a critical moment. Therefore, tomorrow at earliest, we would like to seek the opinions of the experts of the Advisory Committee, revise the basic action policy and issue a declaration of a state of emergency. Seven prefectures will be subject to the declaration: Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo and Fukuoka. The duration will be approximately one month. At the final stage of declaring the state of emergency, I will hold a press conference and thoroughly explain, to the public, the details of the measures and the matters for which I wish to ask for their cooperation. At the same time, the emergency economic measures, the compilation of which I recently instructed, as well as the supplementary budget, will be decided tomorrow. The ultimate goal of these measures are to protect the lives and lifestyles of the public. At this moment, we must prioritize efforts to prevent the spread of infections and to build medical treatment structures, while preparing for a further worsening of the situation. This is the first pillar. To prevent the spread of infections, we will fundamentally strengthen counter-cluster measures by doubling the PCR screening capacity to 20,000 per day and reinforcing the structures of public health centers. Furthermore, we will urgently set up medical treatment structures focused on providing medical care for patients with severe symptoms, in preparation for the sudden surge of patients. With regard to securing hospital beds, a matter of the utmost importance, we will increase the number of beds from 28,000 to 50,000. As for ventilators needed to treat patients with severe symptoms, we will secure 15,000 and continue to increase production further. In cases the number of patients increases, we will ask patients with mild symptoms to in principle stay at home and, if there is a risk of the transmission to the patients’ family members, we will secure facilities for them to stay. To that end, we will hire hotels in the private sector and also urgently refurbish pre-fab facilities intended for police units, which were set up for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games to use as accommodation. We will also accelerate the research and development of therapeutic medication and vaccines, which we have prioritized the most, in one push. At the same time, we will increase production of Avigan, the medicine expected to be effective, and make all necessary preparations to increase the domestic stockpile from current 700,000 doses to 2 million doses. For business operators, we will greatly strengthen support both in quality and quantity so that they can find a way to overcome this difficult time. For the real interest-free unsecured loans provided by the Japan Finance Corporation and other financial institutions, we will extend credit lines significantly, while improving loan conditions by allowing recurring debts to be refinanced as interest free loans. Furthermore, we will also make it possible to receive loans with the same conditions from local financial institutions, such as local banks, Shinkin banks, and credit cooperatives. We will strongly assist business continuity with unprecedentedly strong liquidity support. Moreover, for the first time in our history, we will introduce a system to boldly defer the payments of national taxes and social security premiums, allowing the deferral of 26 trillion yen of such payments, without collateral and penalties. In addition to these measures, we decided to provide bold payment of 300,000 yen each, primarily for households in need, whose revenues have declined because of the significant impact of the novel coronavirus. We will also provide unprecedented cash payments of 2 million yen each to micro-, small-, and medium-sized business operators and 1 million yen each to individual business owners, who are facing extremely difficult circumstances. In total, we will provide over 6 trillion yen in cash payments to strongly support business continuity and daily lives. Additionally, these measures include bold and unprecedented demand stimulation measures, looking ahead to the phase after the containment of outbreaks. In particular, we will provide bold support in the form of discounts and vouchers, to tourism, transport, food services, and event businesses, which have suffered significant declines, in a short period of time. The scale of the emergency economic measures, include these assistance, will be a scale of 108 trillion yen, the largest amount ever. The scale equivalent of 20% of gross domestic product (GDP) is truly bold, even compared with other countries. Towards the swift enactment of the supplementary budget and expedited implementation of measures included in the budget, I ask each minister to exert every effort.”