December 15, 2020
The Suga government on December 14 at a meeting of its COVID-19 task force decided to suspend its travel subsidy program, the “Go To” travel campaign, nationwide. The government, however, will put off the implementation of this measure for two weeks.
Along with the temporary halt to the “Go To” campaign (from Dec. 28 to Jan. 11), the government also decided to exclude trips to Tokyo and Nagoya from the campaign between December 15 and 27 and requests people in the two cities not to use the subsidy program for their trips departing from these areas. Furthermore, under the government plan, the ongoing removal of Sapporo and Osaka as destinations from the travel subsidy program continues until December 27.
Later in the same day at a press conference in the Diet building, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira said, “The government has been too slow to take action. It should put a halt to the tourism promotion campaign immediately and provide direct financial assistance to relevant sectors.”
Koike said, “Since August when the COVID-19 second wave began hitting Japan, the JCP has criticized the government stance to continue the “Go To” travel campaign which facilitates the movement of people for hampering the fight against COVID-19. The party has called for a suspension and review of the campaign.” Koike went on to say, “The suspension of the campaign from December 28 is too late. In order to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by a further virus case spike, the government should declare a moratorium on the campaign without delay.”
Various opinion polls also show that most of the public are critical of the continuation of the travel subsidy program. In a Mainichi poll, 67% of respondents said that the campaign should be halted. In an NHK survey, the percentage of those who agreed to suspend the campaign temporarily reached 79%.
Past related articles:
> JCP Koike criticizes gov't decision to review 'Go To' campaigns as too little, too late [November 22, 2020]
> Tamura demands review of ‘Go To’ travel subsidy campaign [November 14, 2020]
