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State of emergency in Japan over

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared on May 25 that the state of emergency in the country is over, noting that they have successfully managed the rate of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections.
In a press conference, the prime minister said that the move to lift the emergency status in its four major prefectures—including Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Hokkaido—hopes to help the badly hit economy of Japan restart albeit gradually.
“I have decided to end the state of emergency across the nation. In just over a month and a half, we almost brought (the infection) situation under control,” he said.
He said that the advisory panel approved this plan after careful assessment of the number of new infections in Japan for the past week, as well as its medical resources.
Economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, meanwhile, said that they will assess the pandemic situation in the country every three weeks, while marginally asking people to stay home, avoid crossing prefecture borders until May 31 as well as avoid large crowds.
Abe continues to call on Japanese people to observe social distancing measures and other practices like wearing face masks to ensure safety and decrease risk of being infected.
Earlier, the prime minister has been criticized for his lack of response over COVID-19 as well as his failure to implement measures to curb the spread of infection.
Many experts, however, believe the country was able to flatten the curve even without strict regulations, perhaps due to its early contact tracing (which they did as early as January), highly trained medical experts, as well as easy-to-understand social distancing messages.
SEE ALSO: Japan allegedly flattens COVID-19 curve without lockdowns, mass testing

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