Japan Press Weekly

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2020 April 1 - 7 TOP3 [POLITICS]

JCP Koike calls on gov’t to buy COVID-19 antibody testing kits rather than implementing ‘Abenomask’ plan

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on the BS-TBS news program "Hodo 1930" which aired on April 2 severely criticized the government for its off-the-wall anti-corona measure distributing two cloth face masks per household. He said, "Here is an excellent example of tax money being misspent."

Koike stated that as much as 20 billion yen in tax money will be wasted to purchase 100 million masks, and pointed to the need for provision of COVID-19 antibody testing kits. He said, "It would be much better to use tax revenue to purchase the needed testing kits than squandering it on a distribution of two masks per household."

Earlier in the same day, the JCP and opposition parties, including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, jointly held a hearing with Health Ministry officials in charge of fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

In the hearing, an official admitted to the fact that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, without consulting the expert panel, had announced that the government will send face masks made of cloth to all of more than 50 million households.

Apparently, the controversial measure mockingly referred to as "Abenomask" was just a spur-of-the-moment whim of PM Abe.