At yesterday's meeting of the Subcommittee on Novel Coronavirus Disease Control, it was pointed out that it will be extremely important to shorten restaurants’ business hours. In keeping with this advice, we are determined to reduce business hours for restaurants in Tokyo and the cities of Osaka and Nagoya in addition to the city of Sapporo. We intend to thoroughly support all restaurant operators who join this effort.

Furthermore, based on the Subcommittee's recommendation, we will work to swiftly secure hospital beds in all prefectures. We also intend to secure a total of 1,200 public health nurses and other professionals to be sent to public health centers, which is twice the current number, and send them to centers in various areas.

I just now gave instructions to the three ministers regarding those measures. The Subcommittee also pointed out that the coming three weeks will be an extremely critical period. I would like to strongly ask the public once again to take basic measures to prevent infections, such as wearing masks, washing hands, and avoiding the three Cs. I would like to overcome this spread of infections together with you and ask your cooperation.