In the spring of 2021, pointless states of emergency (SoE) were declared in not only Tokyo and Greater Osaka but also five other prefectures too. After all, why shouldn’t other governors get the chance to tell bars and restaurants to close at 20:00 and not offer alcohol and karaoke?
Starting from the top, early bar and restaurant closures ( i.e., quasi-emergency measures (QEM)) were introduced in Sapporo one week before being unnecessarily spread to the rest of Hokkaido under the SoE.
In Aichi, the early bar and restaurant closures in Nagoya were so ineffective that they were expanded prefecture-wide.
And Okayama, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka all decided to not bother with the quasi-emergency and skip straight to the real thing. Indeed, why pointlessly order shortened bar and restaurant hours and demand alcohol and karaoke not be offered in one part of a prefecture when you make the same pointless demands across the whole prefecture?
[Figures by Hiroshi Nishiura for the Japanese Ministy of Health, Labour and Welfare https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10900000/000816622.pdf]
The SoE was lifted in all mainland prefectures on June 20, just in time for the next wave to arrive.