Request to refrain from going out in 8 cities and towns in Ibaraki was made by the Governor Kazuhiko Oikawa of Ibaraki.
He requested the citizens of 6 cities and 2 towns, mainly in the south of Tsuchiura City and Tsukuba City, to refrain from going out unnecessarily in response to the rapid increase in infection with the new coronavirus.
He even told restaurants that offer alcoholic beverages and restaurants that accompany entertainment to shorten their business hours. Governor Oikawa expressed strong concern that “infection is a crisis situation” (Ibaraki Prefectural Office).
Eight cities and towns, including Tsukubamirai City, Ushiku City, Toride City, Kasumigaura City, Sakai Town, and Ami Town, were positioned as “infection spread municipalities”. The governor expressed concern that “infection is a crisis.” “I want to take drastic measures in the expanding area and suppress it before it spreads explosively,” he said.
The period for requesting refrain from going out is 16 days from 28th to 13th December. The restaurant was asked to refrain from doing business from 10 pm to 5 am for 14 days from 30th to 13th December. 280,000 yen per store (20,000 yen a day) will be paid to cooperating companies. In Ibaraki, about 50 new positives were confirmed daily, mainly in the south of the prefecture, exceeding Chiba prefecture per 10,000 people.
The cumulative number of infected people reached the 1440 level on the 27th. On the 27th, Governor Tomikazu Fukuda of Tochigi Prefecture also appealed to the citizens of the prefecture for thorough infection prevention measures, saying, “If the spread of the infection does not stop, we will have to request a leave of absence or refrain from going out.” He also called for a decentralized holiday for the year-end and New Year holidays, ahead of a large number of non-family dinners and drinking parties.
At a meeting of experts in the prefecture held on the 26th, medical personnel expressed concern that if the number of seriously ill people continues to increase, general medical care will be affected, so he said he cautioned at an extraordinary press conference.