Japan virus woes pose threat to Abe

Bloomberg

Shinzo Abe has overcome countless political perils on the road to becoming Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. He may have met his match with the coronavirus.
In a sign of mounting concern, Abe abandoned his relatively mild approach to the epidemic last week with a shock announcement urging schools to shut nationwide from Monday. The move sent millions of parents rushing to arrange childcare and raised doubts about the government’s grasp on a situation threatening to tank the economy, scuttle Tokyo’s plan to host the Summer Olympics in four months and tarnish Abe’s legacy.
“This step signals both the government’s alarm at the outbreak’s trajectory and — perhaps more importantly — Abe’s awareness that mismanaging the outbreak could critically damage his premiership,” said Tobias Harris, a Japan analyst for Teneo Intelligence in Washington. “However, it seems unlikely that this step will either contain the outbreak or restore the public’s confidence in Abe’s leadership.”
The reversal followed weeks of controversy over Abe’s efforts to contain a disease that has infected more than 200 people in Japan and hundreds of others in an attempt to quarantine a cruise ship offshore.
Abe’s health minister acknowledged last week that Japan was conducting only a fraction of the number of tests as its peers, meaning the cases confirmed so far may only be the tip of the iceberg.
The episode has damaged Japan’s reputation for competent governance, even as people began to wonder whether it might be safer to postpone the Olympics for the first time since World War Two. Tokyo has already spent more than $26 billion to prepare for the event, which Abe has made a centerpiece of his campaign to attract foreign tourists.