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TOKYO: Large parts of Japan marked the first day out of a state of emergency on Friday while major cities remained under COVID-19 restrictions and new testing suggested that contagion in Tokyo was wider than official figures. Softbank Corp and McDonald's Japan said they would start returning to normal operations in 39 of Japan's 47 prefectures that are now exempt from the emergency declaration. The 39 prefectures account for about 55 per cent of Japan's 126 million people.
"Even in areas where the emergency has been lifted, we would like to see people refrain from moving between prefectures as much as possible, at least during this month," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Friday."We hope that people will be able to return to their daily lives in stages." Kyodo News reported that antibody tests of 500 Tokyo residents conducted by the health ministry indicated that 0.6 per cent had been exposed to the virus. That would correlate to about 55,000 cases, based on the capital's population of 9.2 million, more than 10 times the official figures for infections.Advertisement