Japan’s Suga Kneels As Approval Ratings Drop … ‘Go to Travel’ Temporarily Suspended Nationwide

The government of Suga Yoshihide of Japan has decided to temporarily suspend Go To Travel, a tourist guide, to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus infection (Corona 19). Recently, as criticism of the government’s lukewarm response to Corona 19 has risen and the government’s approval rating has plummeted, it has declared a “one more time” policy that was enthusiastically followed to support domestic demand.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga responds at a press conference on the 4th. [로이터=연합뉴스]

According to NHK broadcasts on the 14th, the Japanese government held a meeting of the Corona 19 Countermeasures Headquarters this afternoon and decided to temporarily suspend ‘Fight Tours’ across the country from the 28th of this month to the 11th of the next. year. In addition to Sapporo and Osaka, where support was previously suspended, Tokyo and Nagoya, where the infection situation is serious, will immediately cease support from the 16th.

Prime Minister Suga said at a press conference after the meeting, “around 50 million people used ‘Fight Tours’ and played an important role in supporting the local economy.” In the middle of the end of the year and New Years, we decided that we should take intensive measures, so we decided to stop. ”

‘Go To Travel’ is a policy according to which the government provides up to half the amount of the trip for domestic travelers. It was implemented in stages from the end of July in accordance with the aim of simultaneously promoting economic reactivation and quarantine. It was scheduled to continue until January next year, when the total budget of 1.5 trillion yen (about 14 trillion won) was exhausted, but it was extended until June based on the judgment that there was an economic effect.

However, to prevent the spread of Corona 19, it has been criticized that “the accelerator and the brake are applied at the same time” for continuing with the policy of promoting travel and emphasizing the abstention of movement.

The government’s approval rating also plummeted. In a poll conducted by Mainichi Shimbun and the Center for Research and Social Research on the 12th, Suga’s cabinet approval rating was 40%, 17 percentage points lower than last month’s poll. It fell from 64% → 57% → 40% in the same survey during the three months of launch.

Sixty-two percent of respondents rated Suga’s cabinet response to Corona 19 negatively, and 67% of those surveyed said they had to stop “going travel.”

In the NHK poll released on the 14th, the approval rate registered 42%, 14 percentage points less than the previous month. 79% of respondents said that “you have to stop once” when it comes to “traveling with difficulties”.

On the 12th, citizens with masks walk through the streets of Harajuku, Tokyo. [EPA=연합뉴스]

As public opinion deteriorated and the approval rating was about to fall below 40%, which is evaluated as the ‘level of risk’, it seems that it decided to abandon the ‘fight trip’ driven by being a representative plan of economic reactivation.

In addition, Prime Minister Suga decided to double the support for doctors and nurses from medical institutions that responded to Corona 19. The national treasury plans to provide about 15,000 yen (about 158,000 yen) per hour for doctors and 5,500 yen (about 58,000 yen). ) for nurses.

Meanwhile, Japan’s corona 19 confirmed cases registered 3,000 people a day for the first time on the 12th, and 2,369 were confirmed on the 13th. The cumulative number of confirmed cases exceeded 180,000.

Tokyo = Correspondent Lee Young-hee [email protected]