Nikkei wrote that the Ministry of Defense decided on Thursday to extend its survey of possible sites for deploying the Aegis Ashore missile defense system beyond the end of May until July 10 due to delays caused by the coronavirus. The paper wrote that the ministry is planning to survey 20 locations in Aomori, Akita, and Yamagata prefectures because errors were found in the survey data for its report concluding that the GSDF Araya training area in Akita was the best candidate. This is the third time for the ministry to extend the deadline of the survey, as it postponed the original March 20 deadline until the end of April due to bad weather conditions and again until the end of May due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Other national dailies ran similar reports.