Japan's Hokkaido to end state of emergency over coronavirus

Japan's Hokkaido, the nation's prefecture with the highest number of coronavirus infections, will end its state of emergency over the epidemic on Thursday, the prefecture governor, Naomichi Suzuki, said. "We will end the emergency declaration as scheduled on March 19 and from the 20th move to a new stage to overcome the crisis of coronavirus infections," Suzuki told reporters on Wednesday.

Hokkaido had seen 154 infections as of Wednesday, while Japan overall had 907.