Rural Japan has largely avoided the worst of the novel coronavirus and is going to great lengths to keep it that way during the Golden Week holiday period.
Compared with more than 4,500 confirmed cases in Tokyo, the epicenter of the outbreak in the country, most prefectures have reported less than 100.
In a bid to prevent people from going to urban areas where they could catch the virus and unwittingly bring it back, governors and mayors in seven prefectures in or near northeastern Japan issued a joint statement imploring residents to stay home during the holidays through May 6.
The joint statement, subtitled "Let's make our hearts one and protect our hometowns," asked people to refrain from making nonessential trips to other prefectures, including vacations or to visit family.
"My children are in Tokyo and Aichi, but I told them not to come home. If we let our guard down now, we'll see clusters of infection quickly pop up," Miyagi Gov. Yoshihiro Murai said at a press conference last month.
Similar requests have been made for other parts of the country, with the governors of three prefectures to the north of Tokyo -- Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma -- asking that all visits from elsewhere in the country be postponed.
The National Governors' Association had also lobbied the central government to restrict access to roads during Golden Week but was denied amid fears doing so would hit the already flagging economy too hard.
The efforts in rural areas to keep out the virus, which has infected more than 15,000 and killed over 500 in Japan, has led to some instances of discrimination against city dwellers.
A pregnant woman in her 30s living in Chiba Prefecture was visiting her family last month in Iwate, which has yet to report a single case of COVID-19, when she went into labor.
The woman was turned away from two hospitals due to fears she could have the virus before finally being taken by ambulance to a third hospital where she was admitted and gave birth, and also tested negative for the coronavirus.
"We made the call in part because our operating room and delivery room aren't equipped to deal with the virus," said Kenji Kainuma, a senior staff member at Iwate Prefectural Chubu Hospital, one of the hospitals that refused to admit her.
