Japan considers Covid state of emergency

People wearing face masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus walk at Ginza shopping street in Tokyo on Monday (Koji Sasahara/AP)

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said vaccine approval was being speeded up and border controls tightened to curb the spread of the coronavirus as he promised on Monday to consider declaring a state of emergency.

Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike and the governors of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa had asked the national government on Saturday to declare the emergency after the capital recorded a daily record of 1,337 cases on New Year’s Eve.