Broadcasters led with reports that new measures went into effect yesterday allowing the governors of Osaka, Hyogo, and Miyagi to impose strict measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 (NHK, TBS, Fuji TV, TV Asahi) and the city of Hachioji in Tokyo began taking appointments from the elderly yesterday for COVID-19 vaccination (NTV).

Main front-page items in national papers included a report on strained hospital capacities in Osaka, Hyogo, and Miyagi due to the COVID-19 resurgence, Fuji TV’s apparent failure to comply with a foreign ownership rule under the broadcasting law between 2012 and 2014, a GOJ plan to assign individual identification codes to sole proprietors to simplify taxation and subsidy disbursement, and the death of popular TV scriptwriter Sugako Hashida.