TOKYO: Japan will ease its tough Covid border controls by increasing the number of people allowed to enter each day and reducing quarantine requirements following criticism that its current policy is unscientific and xenophobic.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Thursday the daily entry cap will be raised to 5,000, including Japanese citizens, from the current 3,500 beginning March 1. The decision is good news for foreign scholars, exchange students, and business travellers who have been unable to enter, but does not cover tourists.
He says quarantine requirements for entrants will be shortened to three days from the current seven, and those with proof of a negative Covid test and a booster shot can skip self-isolation. Japan has banned nearly all non-resident foreign entrants since early in the pandemic.
The country, which saw a significant decrease in infections in the fall, briefly announced an easing in November but quickly reversed the decision after the omicron variant emerged in other countries.
Kishida on Saturday said he was considering easing border measures based on a scientific assessment of the omicron variant, infection levels in and outside Japan, and quarantine measures taken by other countries.
Most of Japan is currently under virus-related restrictions. Infections only recently started to show signs of slowing, likely because of delayed booster shots.
Nationwide, Japan reported 91,006 new cases on Wednesday, down slightly from a week earlier, after the caseloads exceeded 100,000 on February 5. But experts say the infections are continuing to burden Japan's medical systems that tend to be overwhelmed easily because Covid treatment is limited to public or major hospitals.
Japan has become one of the world's most difficult countries to enter and critics compare it to the "sakoku" locked country policy of xenophobic warlords who ruled Japan in the 17th to 19th centuries.
The current border rules scheduled to remain in place until the end of February allow in only Japanese nationals and permanent foreign residents. The policy has raised protests from foreign students and scholars, about 150,000 of whom have been affected.
Japanese and foreign business groups have also protested the government, saying the prolonged border closure has affected investment, business deals, product development and deliveries. Experts say the rules are hurting Japan's national interest and further delaying recovery in Japan's pandemic-hit economy.
Many of the Japanese public has been supportive of the tight border controls as they think troubles such as the pandemic come from outside their island nation. Kishida's stringent border controls are widely seen as politically motivated to gain public support for his governing party in the upcoming July parliamentary elections.
Kishida's government, however, faces public criticisms over slow booster vaccine distribution due to a delayed decision to cut intervals between the first two shots and a third to six months from an initially planned eight.
Kishida has set a target to give 1 million doses a day by the end of February. Only about 12 per cent of Japan's population have received their third jabs. Experts say the low vaccination rate contributes to a growing number of serious cases and deaths among elderly patients.
While the fast-spreading omicron variant is less likely to cause serious cases among younger people, it is increasingly causing serious illness and death among the elderly by deteriorating their underlying illnesses, starting to overwhelm many hospitals.
Kishida is expected to announce other virus measures Thursday, including subsidies to hospitals that accept elderly patients and increased allowances for nursing homes treating their residents instead of sending them to hospitals.