Japan to Ban Arrivals of Foreigners from around World

Tokyo, Dec. 26 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government said Saturday it will ban arrivals of foreigners from around the world from Monday until the end of next month. By strengthening its border control, Tokyo hopes to prevent apparently more transmissible variants of the novel coronavirus found in Britain and South Africa from entering Japan as much as possible, officials said. In response to the discovery of the variants, Japan introduced a ban on arrivals of foreigners from Britain on Thursday. A similar measure has been taken also for arrivals from South Africa. This time, the ban will be expanded to cover the entire world. The government will also suspend a special measure allowing Japanese and other business travelers living in Japan who return after staying overseas for up to seven days to be exempt from 14-day self-quarantine. The suspension will run from Monday until the end of January. The government will also require Japanese and others returning from any country where a similar coronavirus variant was found to submit certificates of negative test results obtained within 72 hours of their departure. This measure will be in place from Wednesday until the end of January. In October this year, Japan started easing its basic ban on entry to Japan by foreigners, accepting arrivals from around the world on certain conditions. But on Friday and Saturday, Japan found a coronavirus variant from people returning home from Britain. This, coupled with the recent record increases in domestic infection cases, led the government to change course. On Saturday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga called health ministry and other officials to his official residence to receive reports on the coronavirus situations and discuss government response. END