A message from the Governor of Iwate about COVID-19 (August 26th)

A message from Governor Tasso during the 39th meeting of
The Iwate Prefecture COVID-19 Countermeasures HQ (August 26, 2021)

The Delta variant of COVID-19 has caused the virus to spread extremely rapidly throughout the country, and we are in a state of crisis.

Considering this, on August 23rd, we made a formal request to the national government to add Iwate Prefecture as one of the strict containment (manbo) designated areas so that we can implement more serious measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

However, because of the following reasons, our request was denied for the time being.

- While we are equivalent to Stage 3 in terms of new cases per week per 100,000 people, cases are not currently on the rise.

- Our hospital bed capacity is at Stage 4, but the majority of infected people are able to be admitted to hospitals.

Thanks to the cooperation of the people of Iwate in working to prevent infection, we were not deemed to need manbo measures. However, 50% of new cases within Iwate are within the greater Morioka healthcare zone, and 70% of those cases have been found in Morioka City. In order to continue to put a stop to new cases, under Iwate’s State of Emergency, the Iwate government makes a formal request to restaurants in the Morioka area to reduce their business hours from August 30th to September 12th.

With the support of every single resident of Iwate, we can bring down our new infected case numbers to under 10 per 100,000 people per week for the prefecture.

In order to prevent person-to-person contact, I once again ask that you refrain from unnecessary outings and travel across prefectural borders, and that you continue to thoroughly carry out basic preventative measures against the virus.