Abstract
In order to reduce the COVID-19 infections, a state of emergency was declared in Japan from April to May in 2020 and January to March in 2021, which led to closing of restaurants, restraint of unnecessary travels and promoting telework. Policies aiming at drastic restrictions on social activities including the declaration of a state of emergency need to be implemented appropriately after considering how effective they are because they can have negative side effects such as economic losses. In this study, focusing on the effect of the second state of emergency in January on the number of infections, we analysed the data from December 27 to February 14, 2020 (the rate of increase and the effective reproduction number calculated from the 14-day delagged numbers of reported infections, from January 10 to February 28, 2021) by conducting a repeated measure ANOVA with two factors: inside/outside of the target area and before/after the declaration. As a result, there was no statistically significant difference between before and after the declaration, inside and outside the target area, and there was no interaction between them. The result suggests that it cannot be said that the second declaration of emergency in Japan suppressed the infection statistically.
