Coronavirus live updates: Repeat coronavirus infections rare but vaccines still

TOKYO — Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is set to formally announce an end to a pandemic state of emergency over the Greater Tokyo area on Thursday, despite mounting concerns over virus variants and signs that the rate of new infections may be rising once again.

Officials have justified the decision because pressures on the health care system have eased, and Suga is expected to formally announce the decision in a news conference later on Thursday.

Japan has taken a light touch in its approach to pandemic management: the main provision under the state of emergency was asking bars to stop serving alcohol by 7 p.m. and restaurants to close by 8 p.m. Schools remain open, parks are full on sunny days and subway trains are still packed at rush hour.

The Kyodo news agency said even after the emergency was lifted, restaurants in the Greater Tokyo area would still be asked to close by 9 p.m. until the end of March.

The country has been much less impacted than many in the West by the pandemic, with an official death toll of nearly 8,700, partly because mask-wearing has been near-universal since the early days of 2020.

The state of emergency was first imposed on Jan. 7 for a month and subsequently extended as infections only subsided slowly. It initially succeeded in bringing new infections down from a peak of nearly 8,000 a day to around 1,000. But the moving average of new infections has started creeping up again this month, with people growing tired of the restrictions.

Experts are also warning about the growing spread of virulent new strains of the virus, while Japan has lagged behind rich industrial nations in its vaccination program. Many experts fear a fourth wave of the pandemic could strike in coming months