Tokyo governor extends time off on doctor's advice before Games

[TOKYO] Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike will take a few more days away from public duties on the advice of a doctor, the city's government said Sunday, extending an absence that comes about three weeks before the capital hosts the Olympics.

Ms Koike had been expected to return to work Monday, after taking a week to recuperate from fatigue. She was taken to a hospital last Tuesday, Kyodo News reported, without saying whether she had received a specific diagnosis.

Ms Koike, 68, has led Tokyo's response throughout the coronavirus crisis, often appearing to adopt a more cautious stance than Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's government. She has retained relatively strong public backing, with 57 per cent of respondents to a poll of Tokyo residents published by the Asahi newspaper on Monday saying they supported her.

Ms Koike said on June 7 she had received her first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.

The political veteran has stepped out of the spotlight at a critical time, just before local elections in Tokyo on July 4. Ms Koike's term as governor has three more years to run, but she must work closely with the victorious parties in the assembly.

Controversy continues to rage over the Olympics, which are set to open July 23, even as the pace of infections in the city begins to rise. About 58 per cent of respondents to a Mainichi newspaper survey published on Monday said they opposed the games.

About 55 per cent of respondents to the Asahi survey said they approved of Ms Koike's handling of the virus, compared with 35 per cent who said they didn't. Asked about her handling of the Olympics, voters were evenly divided, with 42 per cent saying they approved and the same percentage disapproving.

Ms Koike, a former TV news anchor, defense and environment minister, left her seat as a Liberal Democratic Party member of parliament in her successful bid to become the first female governor of Tokyo in 2016. Her party challenged then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's LDP unsuccessfully in parliamentary elections the following year.

The seven-day moving average of new virus infections in Tokyo rose to 477 on Sunday, compared with 388 the previous week.

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