Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday declared a state of emergency over the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the first of its kind in the country. 

"As I decided that a situation feared to gravely affect people's lives and the economy has occurred... I am declaring a state of emergency," Abe said. 

The state of emergency, starting Wednesday, will be effective until May 6 and covers seven prefectures including Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka. 

"The most important thing now is for each citizen to change our actions," Abe said in televised comments made at a meeting of a government task force. 

"If each of us can reduce contact with other people by at least 70 percent, and ideally by 80 percent, we should be able to see a peak in the number of infections in two weeks," he added.

Abe stressed that the state of emergency will stop short of imposing a formal lockdown as seen in other countries. The emergency gives governors the authority to call on people to stay at home and businesses to close. With no penalties for ignoring the requests in most cases, enforcement will rely more on peer pressure and respect for authority. 

So far, 4,100 infections have been reported in the country, with 97 deaths.

Abe announced the state of emergency targeting the capital Tokyo and six other prefectures – accounting for about 44 percent of Japan's population – for a period of about one month. 

Meanwhile, the Japanese prime minister unveiled a stimulus package he described as among the world's biggest to soften the economic blow. 

His cabinet will also finalize the stimulus package worth 108 trillion yen (990 billion U.S. dollars) – equal to 20 percent of Japan's economic output – to cushion the impact of the epidemic on the world's third-largest economy. 

Abe said direct fiscal spending would amount to 39 trillion yen, or seven percent of the economy, more than double the amount Japan spent following the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. 

Japan has been spared the big outbreaks of the coronavirus seen in other global hot spots, but a recent, steady rise in infections in Tokyo, Osaka and other areas led to growing calls for Abe to announce a state of emergency. 

Coronavirus infections in Tokyo more than doubled to about 1,200 in the past week, with more than 80 new ones reported on Tuesday, accounting for the highest number in the country.

Read more:

It's official: Tokyo Olympics rescheduled for July 23, 2021

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said the city was in talks with the central government to decide what types of facilities it would ask to close or curtail business hours, while reiterating there would be no restrictions on buying groceries and medicine. 

(With input from Reuters, AFP)