TOKYO, Apr 18 (NNN-NHK) – Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe’s plan to provide each household across the nation with two cloth masks, as a measure to contain the spread of COVID-19, began Friday, with deliveries swinging into gear.
Japan Post Co. started delivering the masks in Tokyo with 50 million households nationwide expected to receive the masks, by the end of May, at a cost of 46.6 billion yen (432 million U.S. dollars) to the government.
Part of the government’s 108 trillion yen (one trillion U.S. dollars) extra budget for fiscal 2020, to be submitted to parliament soon, will be allocated to fund the distribution to each household of the masks.
Tokyo and other large urban areas registered growing numbers of the virus infections and have been prioritised by the government to receive the washable masks first.
Earlier in the week, Abe said, the government’s cloth mask plan was “reasonable” to help curb the spread of the virus amid short supply of regular face and surgical masks.
Critics, however, said, the reusable cloth masks would be ineffective to protect against the virus and that rations of two masks per household were rather low.
One opposition party member questioned, “In case of a family of four, what would the family do, share? Or take turns when they go outside?”
Some workers at a care facility said, the masks were too small for adults and could not cover both nose and mouth.
“Some have resorted to putting the cloth mask inside a disposable one, so they can use the disposable one longer.”
As the cloth masks can be washed, the government is hoping that the fact they can be used multiple times will also help ease anxiety that regular face and surgical masks are in extremely short supply and almost literally unavailable to buy regularly at public stores, particularly in large cities.
The first deliveries of the masks yesterday, came a day after Abe declared a nationwide state of emergency over the crisis, expanding the designated prefectures from seven to the entire country.– NNN-NHK