Japan: Special law to "help prevent spread of infection, maintain order"

Government to submit bill on epidemics

Comments from Mike Ruppert: 

“When I was writing "Crossing the Rubicon" someone asked me when I thought biological warfare might come into play. This would be about the stage of collapse where I would expect it. Notwithstanding the fact that Japan is facing a huge risk post-Fukushima anyway, reading this story gives me the willies”. -- MCR

Yomiuri Shimbun

11 January, 2012

The government is planning a special law in preparation for an epidemic of a new, highly virulent and contagious influenza virus, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The planned legislation is primarily aimed at enabling the government to take such binding steps as ordering the public to stay at home and cancel or postpone meetings when a highly virulent flu virus emerges, sources said.

The government sees the envisioned legislation as part of its "national crisis management" mission. It represents an expansion of the legal framework to cope with national emergencies, the sources said.

A bill for the planned special law will be submitted to the ordinary Diet session scheduled to be convened later this month for enactment by the end of the session, according to the sources.

A flu epidemic most recently hit the country in 2009.

That virus, however, was a weak strain and symptoms of most flu patients were not serious.

When a virulent strain of flu becomes epidemic, there is a possibility of public panic, the sources said.

The government has reached the conclusion there should be a set of legally binding measures to prevent the spread of infection and social unrest due to a flu epidemic, according to the sources. A new type of deadly flu emerges at intervals of about every 10 to 40 years. It is believed that virulent viruses are spawned through mutations of swine or avian flu viruses into strains highly infectious to humans.

The flu in the 2009 epidemic was an H1N1 strain with low virulence, related to a swine flu virus.

In contrast, H5N1 is a deadly strain of avian flu, experts say.

Should H5N1 reach epidemic proportions, there could be as many as 640,000 deaths across the country, according to government estimates.

According to the outline of the planned bill, when a deadly flu epidemic is confirmed, the government epidemic 

countermeasures headquarters will declare a state of emergency, allowing it to order people to stay home or cancel public gatherings.

The envisaged law would also include expropriation of medicine, food and other daily necessities should suppliers refuse government instructions to continue selling the items during an epidemic.

The expropriation of goods is in light of lessons learned from the disruption of supplies of goods and their distribution networks in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the sources said.

In the medical services field, the law would empower the government to order doctors and other health care professionals to continue working when a deadly epidemic occurs.

When the epidemic is limited to certain areas, the government would concentrate on giving vaccines to residents of those areas, while undertaking a containment campaign by such actions as quarantining the areas, the sources said.

If the flu is weaker, the government would refrain from issuing these binding orders, but issue "requests" calling for compliance on a voluntary basis, they said. In addition, the law would make it obligatory for the state, prefectures, cities, towns and villages to map out flu epidemic action plans.

Operators of vital services such as utilities and medical institutions would be designated as special entities in case of an epidemic, with the law obliging them to draw up business continuity plans before an epidemic occurs, the sources noted.

Many of the provisions in the planned legislation are in response to emergencies that followed the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis, they said.