COVID-19 Containment Boosts Kishida Cabinet Approval to 62%... Contrasting with Suga Cabinet

▲Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] As the spread of COVID-19 in Japan has somewhat subsided, the approval rating of the Kishida Fumio Cabinet has risen.

According to a telephone poll conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun from the 3rd to the 5th targeting Japanese voters, the approval rating of the Kishida Cabinet was 62%, up 6 percentage points from the survey conducted on the 1st and 2nd of last month.

The percentage of respondents who said they did not support the cabinet decreased by 7 percentage points to 22%.

The rise in approval ratings appears to be linked to the containment of the COVID-19 spread and recent evaluations of the government's quarantine policies.

Regarding the Japanese government's suspension of all new entries of foreigners to block the influx of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron, 89% of respondents evaluated this positively.

Yomiuri Shimbun analyzed, "It seems that the promptness in implementing countermeasures was positively received."

Among respondents, 55% expressed a favorable view of the Japanese government's overall COVID-19 response, and 53% praised the COVID-19 economic measures amounting to 55.7 trillion yen (approximately 583.2 trillion won) in fiscal spending.

The rise in the Kishida Cabinet's approval rating contrasts with the sharp drop in support for the Suga Yoshihide Cabinet in August this year, when daily infections exceeded 20,000 and the spread was severe.

Analyzing the tally by local public broadcaster NHK, the daily new COVID-19 cases announced by Japanese health authorities have remained below 300 since October 28 of this year.

As of the 5th of this month, the average daily new cases over the past week were 121.4.

According to the Prime Minister's Office announcement, as of the 2nd of this month, 77.0% of Japan's population had received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. The third dose vaccination began on the 1st of this month.

In Japan, two people who tested positive at airport quarantine have been confirmed to be infected with the Omicron variant, but there have been no reported cases of Omicron infections within the community.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.