COVID-19: Facing Omicron Variant, Japan closes with visitors

The Government has announced the prohibition to enter the territory of any foreign national from Tuesday, only a few weeks after relaxing the restrictions at his borders.

Le Monde

The relaxation lasted only three weeks. Japan decided to close its borders again to the threat of the new variant of the Omicron coronavirus, which seems to diffuse on the planet.

“We will prohibit all [new] entries from foreign nationals from around the world from November 30,” announced the Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, in front of the press. The Japanese returning from nine southern African States and countries where new variant infections have been identified will have to submit to “strict risk isolation measures”, Kishida said.

Japan, which has set up restrictions at its borders from the beginning of the pandemic, had relaxed in early November its measures for business travelers, students and foreign trainees, but remains closed to tourists .

The WHO pleads to maintain the opening of the borders

The Nippon government has announced on Friday the ten-day elongation of isolation at the hotel for visitors from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe arriving in Japan. Tokyo has extended this measure this weekend for visitors arriving from Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.

Identified for the first time in South Africa, the Omicron variant pushed many countries to close their borders to southern Africa as they sometimes barely reopened in the world.

/Media reports.