COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

The COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to Japan in January 2020. Numbers have been recorded in each of the 47 prefectures except for Iwate. The country has seen over 10,000 sick people.

The beginning
The Japanese government said its first outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 () started on 16 January 2020. The first was a person of Kanagawa Prefecture who had come back from Wuhan, China. The second outbreak was from Europeans and Americans from 11 March to 23 March. 

Government response
The Japanese government has tried to stop the outbreak. On 30 January, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe created a national task force to help stop the outbreak.  

On 27 February, Abe stopped all Japanese elementary, junior high, and high schools until early April. 

On 7 April, Abe set a one-month state of emergency for Tokyo and the prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo, and Fukuoka. On 16 April, the declaration was extended to the rest of the country.

2020 Olympics

The pandemic was a problem for the 2020 Summer Olympics. The Japanese government and the International Olympic Committee tried to wait until 2021 before starting the Olympics. 

Criticism of the government response

Medical experts and the news have did not like the Japanese government's actions. They said the government was not testing many people for COVID-19. Medical experts said that the government should have used pneumonia surveillance numbers to help very sick patients.

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