Support for Kishida’s cabinet rose to 65%, up
by 4 percentage points from the previous survey a month ago, the newspaper
said.
In the latest poll taken from Friday to
Sunday, 61% of those surveyed evaluated positively Kishida’s anti-coronavirus
steps, the highest figure since the Nikkei started asking the public’s views on
the government’s coronavirus response in February 2020.
Amid the global emergence of highly
transmissible omicron variant of coronavirus, Kishida late November announced
that Japan was barring entry to foreigners for about a month. Last week, he
extended the measure through New Year holidays.
Kishida took office in October, replacing
Yoshihide Suga, whose one-year term as prime minister saw his support crumble
as COVID-19 surged.
Japan has detected several hundreds new
coronavirus cases a day in recent weeks, down sharply from more than 20,000
daily infections in the latest peak in August.
