Tokyo will not request extension of COVID restrictions -Nikkei

FILE PHOTO: Visitors wearing protective face masks walk on a pedestrian deck, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Tokyo, Japan January 22, 2022. REUTERS/Issei Kato

TOKYO (Reuters) -The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will not request an extension of COVID-19 countermeasures scheduled to end on March 21, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The Japanese government will likely announce on Wednesday whether to lift the so-called quasi-state of emergency curbs currently applied in 18 of Japan's 47 prefectures including the capital, Tokyo, local media have said.

The measures centre on limiting business hours for eateries and have been in place since early January as the highly contagious Omicron variant drove up daily infections in the country's sixth wave of the pandemic.

Tokyo logged 7,836 coronavirus cases on Tuesday, down 12% from the same day previous week.

(Reporting by Satoshi SugiyamaEditing by Chang-Ran Kim)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2022. Click For Restrictions -
https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html