The country’s government announced August 17 plans to extend its current state of emergency until mid September while adding seven prefectures to its list, in a move economists forecast will dampen consumption by 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) and 3 trillion yen ($27 billion), The Japan Times reports.

Japan’s retailers have already struggled to recover from the pandemic, in the wake of rounds of restrictions that aimed to curb the spread of Covid-19 before the Olympic Games in July. Top department stores in Tokyo and Osaka this week began imposing tougher restrictions by blocking access to their grocery floors after experts advised the government to impose stronger measures. The delta variant’s spread could hamper the market’s recovery further, despite ongoing vaccination efforts.

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