What was unprecedented was the uncharacteristically unresponsive way in which Abe reacted to the slide.
Another important factor in play was the nature of Abe’s leadership at this crucial time. Abe was increasingly seen as “missing in action”. The headlines of Aug 5, for example, asked, “COVID-19 cases are climbing in Japan. Where is Shinzo Abe?” It looked as if Abe was deliberately trying to avoid personal accountability as prime minister on a critical issue for the nation while largely handing things over to the relevant ministers, such as Yasutoshi Nishimura, the Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy, who was in charge of the government’s response to the coronavirus and who held an extraordinary number of press conferences to provide information to the public.