Evaluation of the effect of the state of emergency for the first wave of COVID-19 in Japan

In this paper, we evaluate the effect of the state of emergency for the first wave of COVID-19 in Japan, 2020 from the viewpoint of mathematical modelling. In Japan, it was announced during the period of the state of emergency from April 7 to May 25, 2020 that the 80% reduction of the contact rate is needed to control the outbreak. By numerical simulation, we show that the reduction rate seems to have reached up to 86%. Moreover, we estimate the control reproduction number [Formula: see text] during the period of the state of emergency as [Formula: see text] (95%CI, 0.34–0.39), and show that the effective reproduction number [Formula: see text] after the lifting of the state of emergency could be greater than 1. This result suggests us that the second wave of COVID-19 in Japan could possibly occur if any effective intervention will not be taken again.