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On May 14, 2020, the Prime Minister held the 34th meeting of the Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
At the meeting, the participants discussed the response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
 
Following the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“Under the state of emergency, the people have extended supports through refraining from traveling back to their hometowns or going out during the Golden Week holiday period, and also avoiding the three Cs (closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact setting). Due to these efforts, the numbers of new cases have now begun to decrease, and progress has been made steadily towards bringing this situation to an end.

At today’s Expert Meeting, the experts set objective criteria for lifting the state of emergency, including specific figures in three areas: the state of infections, medical treatment structure, and monitoring structure. In light of these criteria and also with the endorsement of today’s Advisory Committee on the Basic Action Policy, we lift the state of emergency in 39 prefectures, namely those except the eight prefectures of Hokkaido, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Kyoto, Osaka and Hyogo.

In addition, one week from now, on May 21, we will request the Expert Meeting to assess the situation at that moment again. If it is possible, we intend to lift the state of emergency, without waiting until its completion date set on May 31. In the eight Prefectures under Specific Cautions, the number of patients has declined significantly. We ask, however, that these prefectures continue to encourage residents to not let down their guard and to make efforts to prevent the spread of infections, including refraining from going out and traveling beyond prefectural borders, as they have done to date. For those prefectures where the state of emergency has been lifted, we hope that they will uphold basic preventive measures, such as washing hands and wearing face masks as well as avoiding the three Cs. We also hope they will thoroughly implement measures that balance socio-economic activities and the prevention of infections by exercising the ‘New Lifestyle,’ as proposed by the experts, and by following the ‘Guidelines on Preventive Measures’ formulated by the respective industries.

By lifting the state of emergency in many areas, we will create a new normal for everyday lives in the age of coronavirus. To this end, it is necessary to introduce another set of new measures; that is our assessment. In order to consolidate the impact of the first supplementary budget, we will immediately start formulating the second supplementary budget. At the same time, we will also start preparing bills that establish necessary schemes
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As the first pillar, we will fundamentally enhance the Employment Adjustment Subsidies to protect the livelihoods of those who have had no choice but to temporarily close businesses. We will raise the maximum payment to 15,000 yen per day as a special measure and establish a new scheme that allows employees themselves to directly apply for and receive the money.

Secondly, amid the significant decline in sales of micro-, small- and medium-sized business operators, we will establish a new assistance scheme to further reduce rents, a fixed cost that is posing a major burden on them.

Thirdly, we will establish a new mechanism for supporting students, including university students, so as to ensure that none of them are forced to relinquish their education due to the significant decline of earnings from part-time jobs, or other reasons.

Fourthly, in order to overcome the prolonged battle with the virus, we will cover, with the government outlays, the total expenditure of the comprehensive support subsidy for medical systems and increase the amount significantly. By doing so, we intend to extend robust support, such as enhancing screening structures and care for the patients with severe symptoms in order to solve various issues faced by medical institutions.

Fifthly, as it is difficult to foresee the overseas trend of infections sufficiently, we will provide adequate liquidity support for large companies and those relatively smaller ones, in addition to small- and medium-sizes enterprises. We will also implement measures to strengthen financial functions such as increasing the allocation of special lending by the Japan Finance Corporation and crisis response lending by the Development Bank of Japan, as well as strengthen the financial base with capital funds including subordinated loans.

In addition to the aforementioned reforms, we will give due consideration over other assistance, which are deemed necessary, while reviewing the status of implementation of previous budgetary measures. When taking into consideration the forthcoming prolonged battle, it is essential to make ourselves ready to respond flexibly to any situation changes. From this point of view, we intend to further increase the contingency funds for novel coronavirus disease control and be fully prepared for future responses.

With respect to this supplementary budget, we intend to decide the budget allocation aiming at May 27 and swiftly submit it to the Diet thereafter. To this end, I ask the Minister of Finance to work on the formulation of the second supplementary budget under such directions. Furthermore, I understand that each of you is working on the execution of various measures, which are incorporated in the first supplementary budget. I ask you to continue your all-out efforts so as to deliver to the public various subsidies as early as possible. In addition to that, I ask for your cooperation for the formulation of the second supplementary budget as well.

Lastly, today we have also decided to review the border controls, including adding 13 countries, such as Mexico and the Maldives, to the areas from which we will deny entry.

Moving forward, we will work with the public to take on the challenge to create a new normal for everyday life, while preventing the spread of infections. I ask each of you to continue to exert every effort to deal with the situation.”