JAPAN: Japan's Cabinet approved draft laws to toughen coronavirus restrictions on Friday, a move that could threaten rule-breakers with fines and prison sentences for the first time since the outbreak began.
With just six months until the virus-postponed Tokyo Olympics are due to begin, the capital and other regions are currently under a state of emergency in an attempt to quell a record spike in COVID-19 infections.
Despite the recent spike, Japan has seen a comparatively small Covid-19 outbreak, with around 4,700 deaths overall.
Meanwhile, the number of people taking their own lives in Japan rose for the first time in over a decade last year, as the pandemic reversed years of progress combatting a stubbornly high suicide rate.
Japan's health and welfare ministry said Friday that 20,919 people died by suicide in 2020 according to preliminary data, up 3.7 percent from the previous year. That compares with 3,460 deaths from coronavirus in the same period.
It marks the first year-on-year rise in suicides in more than a decade, with women and children in particular taking their lives at higher rates.
Japan has long had the highest suicide rate among the Group of Seven advanced countries -- though regionally South Korea registers higher figures. But the government has worked in recent years to better support people with mental health needs.
Japan has seen a smaller coronavirus outbreak than some countries, avoiding the harsh lockdown measures put in place elsewhere, and a fall in suicides during the first half of 2020 raised hopes that the pandemic's impact might be limited.
But the figures began to rise in July after a first state of emergency was lifted in May, a pattern experts say tracks with data showing suicides often drop in the first phase of crises such as conflicts and natural disasters, before rising sharply.
"For suicide in Japan, the rise was a major event and I think it was a big turning point," said Michiko Ueda, an associate professor of political science at Waseda University in Tokyo who studies suicide in Japan.
"The coronavirus is definitely a major factor," she told AFP, warning "we cannot deny the possibility that figures will rise again this year". Mental health experts around the world have warned that suicides could rise during the pandemic, driven by diverse factors including economic hardship, stress and family abuse. In Japan, the rise is the first since 2009, in the wake of the global economic crisis, but it follows a different pattern from previous years.
"The coronavirus pandemic forced people into unusual circumstances," a health ministry official told AFP. A survey released by public broadcaster NHK in December found 26 percent of female workers reported employment problems including layoffs since April, compared with 19 percent of men.
- AFP
