Still, the past two quarters of growth did not make up for the damage wreaked by the pandemic. The economy ended down 4.8 percent for the year, the first annual contraction since 2009, when the country was suffering from the fallout of the global financial crisis.
While people in Japan are not facing the same level of short-term economic peril as those in the United States, growth is expected to contract again in the first three months of this year.
After a steep rise in daily infection counts, Japan declared a second, albeit more limited, state of emergency at the end of December. Initially announced for one month, the edict was extended through early March partly in response to the appearance of new,…