Virus fright slashes visitors to Japan’s shopping hubs

Weekend pedestrian traffic down 15% in central Osaka

20200221N Sensoji Reuters

Tokyo's Asakusa district, home to the Sensoji temple, suffered a 15% decline in traffic this month. © Reuters

YUKI HANAI, Nikkei staff writer

TOKYO -- As the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus grows, people in Japan have stopped leaving their houses.

When Japanese carrier KDDI used location data on mobile phones to measure how many people were in a 1 km radius from major stations and tourist hot spots, the drop off from the previous year was clear.

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