Kanagawa Prefecture on Wednesday unveiled its criteria for issuing future COVID-19 infection alerts after the current state of emergency is lifted.
The criteria include the recording of a weekly average of 10 daily infections or above and untraceable cases comprising 50 percent or higher of that number, Kanagawa Gov. Yuji Kuroiwa said during a news conference. New cases confirmed at medical institutions that have become infection clusters will be excluded from the count, he said.
The prefecture confirmed 18 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, the first in double digits in four days.
The central government is on Thursday set to decide to lift the state of emergency before its planned expiration on May 31 for Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures. But the emergency declaration will likely be kept intact for Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba and Hokkaido.
Kuroiwa said his prefecture is still not meeting conditions set by the government.
Meanwhile, the Tokyo government reported five new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, the sixth straight day the number of daily infections fell below 20 in the capital.
Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike has said that keeping the figure for single-day new infection cases under 20 is one of the capital's criteria for relaxing the stay-at-home and business closure requests.
While the central government lifted the state of emergency for 39 of 47 prefectures last week, it is still monitoring the situation for the rest including Tokyo.
The number of infected in the capital stands at 5,075 now.
