Japan Ending All Coronavirus Emergency Steps Nationwide
Japan also shortening quarantine period for vaccinated travelers.
Japan became the latest country to accept that COVID-19 is endemic and return itself back to normalcy.
Japan’s government announced Tuesday that the coronavirus state of emergency will end this week to help rejuvenate the economy as infections slow.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the emergency will end Thursday and virus restrictions will be eased gradually “in order to resume daily lives despite the presence of the virus.” He said the government will create more temporary COVID-19 treatment facilities and continue vaccinations to prepare for any future resurgence.
“Our fight against the coronavirus is now entering a new phase,” Suga said. “Finally, we can see social and economic activities starting to normalize.”
Japanese officials are weighing the use of vaccine passports and virus tests.
Japan’s current state of emergency, declared in April, was repeatedly extended and expanded. Despite public weariness and frustration over the measures, Japan has managed to avoid the more restrictive lockdowns imposed elsewhere while recording about 1.69 million cases and 17,500 deaths from COVID-19.
The emergency and other measures in all 27 prefectures expire at the end of September. Some experts want the state of emergency in 19 areas to be eased to a quasi-emergency first to ensure infections don’t quickly rebound, and the government is reportedly considering the strategy.
The emergency has mainly been in the form of requests for restaurants and bars to open for shorter hours and not serve alcohol. Governors in Osaka, Hyogo and Kyoto have said they plan to keep those requests in place while closely monitoring the virus situations.
The country is also loosening quarantine restrictions for people entering the country who have been vaccinated against COVID-19, shortening the required period for self-isolating at home from 14 days to 10 days.
People who have been fully vaccinated will be able to go outside as long as they test negative for the virus after 10 days following their arrival, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a press conference.
Only shots developed by Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. or AstraZeneca Plc are eligible, and a “vaccine passport” either issued in or recognized by Japan is required.
People traveling from some countries including Britain and India that Japan sees as having a heightened risk of introducing coronavirus variants had needed to spend the first three of the 14 days in a government-designated facility, but will no longer be required to do so if they are fully vaccinated.
The news is being celebrated in Hawaii, as Japanese travelers account for a great deal of tourism.
The Japan market brings 1.7 million visitors to the islands each year, spending about $250 per person, per day. Visitors from Japan aren’t just known for being the highest-paying tourists.
“We want the Japanese traveler back. You couldn’t find a more respectful, more pono kind of visitor to Hawaii. They’re very respectful of our culture and our natural resources,” said Takahata.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Following up on leaky masks, substandard (e.g. 6 ft) distancing for an insignificant transmission mode, with viable legal indemnity, a vaccine passport to certify a minority of silent spreaders. Whatever it takes to exaggerate risk, suppress bad practices and choices (e.g. planned parent/hood), and reclaim a semblance of normality. To abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too.
Dude: you need a break from the internet.
Steve is not wrong. I agree with your sentiments, but your comments are mostly unintelligible and copied to every article regardless of topic.
You would get more positive attention and have a better chance at convincing others if you are more coherent and less relative.
Good for Japan, but it’s a little disturbing that Hawaii, which is a state in the United States of America populated by Americans, are more excited to receive Japanese tourists than they are Americans. They still have their draconian nonsense up for Americans which means they still want to keep out Americans.
My thoughts exactly
On the other hand, if you were inviting guests to a party at your house, wouldn’t you rather have the average Japanese than the average American?
It’s a racial thing. Pure and simple.
Japan is so respectful that they bombed it on 12/7/1941, killing thousands of young AMERICAN men, there to protect the islands and America. And started a War that killed millions with their buddy’s the Nazis. The JAPS tortured, raped, and murdered hundreds of thousands throughout the Pacific…
Couldn’t ask for more respect than that!
When I first traveled
to Hawaii in the 70’s, I was appalled at the number of Japanese at Pearl Harbor and the very high percentage that bought up the land and lived there.
If the woke scold mob wants to know about a racist society, they should study Japan.
Nearly half of the civilians killed on Pearl Harbor day were Japanese Americans. 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II. Approximately 800 were killed in action. 20 Japanese Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor. To use the word JAP is to dishonor their memory and hurt any Japanese Americans who are reading this blog. It’s worse than fat-shaming women.
Spoken by someone that apparently didn’t have close relatives fighting for our side in the Pacific. I did. My parents graduated high school in 1941. The boys were cannon fodder. My father was killed, one uncle spent 32 months in combat zones in the Pacific. Ending with Iwo Jima.
Read some of the oral histories of the Bataan Death march and subsequent imprisonment of our POW’s. Try https://www.amazon.com/My-Hitch-Hell-Bataan-Commemorative/dp/0028811259/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1633119142&sr=8-1
Or, try “The Rape of Nanking”.
“Jap” was about the kindest term used in those days.
There were actually not that many civilians killed on 7Dec41. The Japanese concentrated on military targets.
It is absolutely true that many young men of Japanese ancestry served with distinction in WWII. I have shirt tail relatives that did. But, many of those with Japanese ancestry also refused induction. I don’t really blame them, those of “oriental” extraction were very much second class citizens in the era leading up to WWII. But, their refusal was a factor in the establishment of the relocation camps.
The whole period was a horror. Fussing about what we called Japanese back then trivializes it.
Are you suffering some form of mental affliction?
Japan declared war on the United States and attacked a military target.
Since the surrender in August 1945 however Japan has been as close and good an ally as we could ask for.
Japanese society like many European societies militarized and radicalized following the start of the depression. Do you still hate Germans, Romanians, Bulgarians etc?
Japanese investors are making Hawaii a place worth living in you say?
Good somebody should
So I guess the Australian (dictator) PM Morrison will see Japan as a threat.
Obviously, Japan doesn’t understand the they need to wear masks because the virus doesn’t work and they need to be jabbed because masks don’t work. Also, they don’t understand that the biggest threat to the unvaccinated is the vaccinated.
Japan are incapable of understanding modern science.
Correction: because the VACCINE doesn’t work.
Japan adjusts depending on new-case load.
Did you know Western Australia is pretty much free, no lockdowns,
Huge rugby 60,000 areas full.
They closed their boarders including the East Australia and East is pissed at West
Well they can’t stand the freedom
Yes, or Japanese friends are happy to lose their masks because they are very concerned about losing face.
I missed u.
“The emergency has mainly been in the form of requests for restaurants and bars to open for shorter hours and not serve alcohol.”
Because we all know drinking alcohol makes COVID stronger and it doesn’t come out at night…