[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] As the number of new COVID-19 infections in Japan continues to hit record highs daily, the Mainichi Shimbun reported on the 22nd that the rising trend in approval ratings for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's cabinet has stalled.
The newspaper reported that a telephone opinion poll conducted jointly with the Social Research Center targeting 1,061 voters nationwide showed that the approval rating for the Kishida cabinet dropped by 2 percentage points to 52% compared to the survey conducted on December 18 last year.
The percentage of respondents who did not support the cabinet remained at 36%, the same as in the previous survey.
This result differs from recent opinion polls by other major media outlets, which all showed an upward trend in approval ratings. NHK and Yomiuri Shimbun reported that in surveys conducted from the 8th to 10th and from the 14th to 16th of this month, respectively, the approval rating for the Kishida cabinet rose by 4 to 7 percentage points compared to a month earlier.
The newspaper stated that the change in public opinion trends appears to be influenced by the fact that new infections have set record highs for five consecutive days since the 18th. On the 22nd, Japan's new infections surpassed 50,000 for the first time.
Due to the surge in new infections, the percentage of respondents who "evaluate" (approve of) the Kishida cabinet's COVID-19 measures was only 31%, a drop of 15 percentage points compared to last month.
Mainichi Shimbun pointed out that despite the explosive increase in new infections, unlike the previous cabinet under Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, the approval rating for the Kishida cabinet has not fallen sharply, attributing this to a lowered sense of caution toward the Omicron variant.
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