Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has again asked people to stay home to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The remark came Wednesday, a day after he declared a month-long state of emergency for Tokyo and six other prefectures.
The measure allows governors in these regions to issue stricter requests to residents to stay home and businesses and organizations to shut down.
Abe said only the cooperation of the general public will allow the country to get out of the state of emergency in a month.
He then asked everyone to reduce interactions with people by up to 80 percent.
The declaration came as Abe has been criticized for being too slow to respond to the outbreak.
According to Tokyo's health ministry, as of Wednesday, Japan has a total of 4,257 virus infections with at least 81 deaths.■
<Photo: Yonhap News>
