Companies will no longer be required to find out if employees have had close contact with COVID-19 patients, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Wednesday.
At a press conference, Kishida said, "The end of the sixth wave is in sight." He also stressed that the government would continue coronavirus prevention measures for the time being.
A government expert panel approved Thursday an expected government decision to end the quasi-emergency priority measures as scheduled Monday in 18 prefectures: Tokyo, Osaka, Hokkaido, Aomori, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Ishikawa, Shizuoka, Gifu, Aichi, Kyoto, Hyogo, Kagawa and Kumamoto prefectures. The government will make an official decision soon.
The government will secure 3 million doses of oral medicine and other COVID-19 drugs as well as 350 million qualitative antigen test kits over the next six months. It also plans to purchase 75 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 70 million doses of the Moderna vaccine in preparation for a fourth round of vaccinations. A total of 1.35 trillion yen from this fiscal year's budget will be used to pay for the measures.
Kishida said companies that take thorough pandemic countermeasures will not be expected to identify staff who have had close contact with COVID-19 patients.
Business operations have been disrupted as people identified as close contacts have had to self-isolate for seven days, in principle.
The government also announced steps to help normalize economic and social activities when the priority measures end.
Kishida said existing travel discounts for prefectural trips will be expanded to include stays within regional areas from April 1. Vaccination certificates or negative PCR test results will be needed to receive the discount.
The self-isolation period for close contacts is currently seven days, but essential workers have been allowed to stop isolating after they receive a negative result in PCR tests four or five days after they were confirmed to have been a close contact.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said a wider range of people will be allowed to isolate for shorter periods.
The prioritized distribution of qualitative antigen test kits to medical institutions ended Wednesday.
The ministry had limited the supply of free tests for people without symptoms due to shortages but has since been able to ensure the availability of more than 2 million kits a day thanks to increased imports and production.
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