Covid-19: Japanese PM stands firm on school closure despite outcry

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. - AP

TOKYO (The Straits Times/ANN): Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday (Feb 28) stood firm on his call for schools to close for a month, amid stiff pushback from parents, educators and infectious diseases experts who say the move was excessive and unnecessary.

Separately, Tokyo Disney Resort, which covers Disneyland and Disney Sea, also said on Friday that it will close from Saturday until March 15, joining other popular tourist attractions such as the Ghibli Museum and the Kabukiza theatre in Ginza in shutting their doors to curb the spread of the virus.

The call for a blanket nationwide closure of schools also appears to have sparked panic buying among an anxious public.

"Toilet paper" was trending on Twitter overnight, as users across the country posted photographs of empty shelves at supermarkets and drugstores.

Abe's plan calls for elementary, junior high, senior high and special needs schools to close from next Monday, in a move that will extend until the spring break.

School will only reopen on April 6 at the earliest.

Education Minister Koichi Hagiuda, meanwhile, reassured local authorities on Friday that they can exercise "flexible judgment "as to when is the best time to shut, based on local circumstances.

The coronavirus outbreak has robbed graduating students across the country of the chance to don their graduation robes, including at Waseda University in Tokyo.

Abe promised that the government will draw up all necessary measures "without any hesitation" to fight the outbreak and mitigate the impact of the unprecedented policy.

"The government will be responsible for responding to the various issues arising from these measures," Abe told the Diet, as Japan's Parliament is known.

He reiterated that the next two weeks will be crucial for Japan, which is at a tipping point in its fight to stop the coronavirus outbreak from becoming an epidemic.

"I'm aware of views that if the virus spreads, it could have a huge impact on the economy," he added. "We're therefore watching developments carefully."

Finance Minister Taro Aso also sought to calm anxieties among parents on Friday.

He said: "The government would make financial arrangements to alleviate the burden on households, including dual-income and single-parent families, that are affected by the policy."

Municipalities such as Chiba City and Ehime Prefecture, which have described Abe's move as a "sudden policy with no concrete details", said they will end their school term later next week.

Chiba City will close schools from next Tuesday and Ehime from next Wednesday.

Still, Chiba City Mayor Toshihito Kumagai said city schools will close tentatively for two weeks, instead of until spring break.

This is taking into account the incubation period of the coronavirus, he said.

"We need to make sure that there is enough epidemiological evidence from the government to justify depriving students of opportunities to learn," he said.

Kanazawa Mayor Yukiyoshi Yamano, meanwhile, said he "was not thinking of closing schools next Monday at all at this point".

"We share the sense of crisis with the Prime Minister, but this is a major social experiment," he said.

"The government has to be cautious with such large-scale unprecedented moves. There is not too much time for citizens and our city to make preparations".

Japan has 214 cases of the coronavirus as at 11.30am (10.30am in Singapore) on Friday, including four deaths.

This excludes another 705 cases, including four deaths, among passengers and crew members of the Diamond Princess cruise ship off Yokohama.

The government has urged companies to work from home - with Dentsu and Shiseido among those who have implemented such policies - while event organisers have largely heeded the call to scrap concerts and sporting events.

But the plan for a blanket closure of schools across the country has proven divisive, as 19 prefectures - out of a total of 47 - have recorded at least one case of the new coronavirus.

Among the opponents was Dr Kentaro Iwata, an infectious diseases expert from Kobe University who had criticised the government's quarantine measures on the Diamond Princess.

"The infections so far have had a large regional difference, and such a uniform plan nationwide makes no sense," he wrote on Twitter.

He said that while he understood the move to close schools in Hokkaido, where there were 54 cases as at Friday morning, the plan to close schools nationwide was "meaningless".

He added: "The problem is that there is no transparency in what data is being interpreted, how it is being interpreted, and how decisions are being made."

Some local government leaders also criticised the opaqueness of the move on Thursday night, with Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura describing it as a "shocking sudden request with no specific details", though he expressed some understanding for the move on Twitter.

Kumagai of Chiba City said on Twitter: "How will parents who are medical workers or doing other jobs that support society manage? Society could collapse."

Tobias Harris of research firm Teneo Consultancy said: "This decision is a particularly drastic step for the central government to take."

This was "not mentioned in the basic policy adopted Tuesday, and appears to go beyond what the government's own experts were recommending", he added. - The Straits Times/Asia News Network