Japan is to step up its efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 by banning the entry of foreigners traveling from the US, China, South Korea and most of Europe, the Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday.
Non-Japanese citizens who have been in any of these areas in the past two weeks would be barred, the paper said.
Tokyo might also ban travel to and from some countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, it said, citing unidentified government sources.
Photo: AFP
Japan currently bans the entry of travelers from some parts of South Korea, China and several European nations, and requests those entering from the US, China and South Korea to self-quarantine for 14 days.
The widening of the ban comes as a surge in the number of infections in Japan stokes fears that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might shift from considering to declaring a national state of emergency — a step that could pave the way for a lockdown of its capital, Tokyo.
“We’re in a critical stage” on state of emergency deliberations, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.
Any lockdown in Japan would look different from mandatory measures imposed in some parts of Europe and the US: By law, Japanese local authorities are only permitted to issue requests for people to stay home that are not legally binding.
However, analysts said such a move would inflict serious damage to an economy already on the cusp of recession due to the widening fallout from the pandemic, which has derailed Tokyo’s plans to host the Olympics this summer, disrupted supply chains and cooled consumption via event cancelations and store shutdowns.
“I think the possibility of a lockdown of the Tokyo metropolitan area is rising,” said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
“It would be like stopping blood flowing through Japan’s economy,” he said, estimating that a lockdown of Tokyo for a month could shrink Japan’s economy by about ¥5.1 trillion (US$47 billion), or nearly 1 percent.
Abe has pledged to deploy a stimulus package exceeding one unveiled during the global financial crisis to combat the outbreak, which had infected nearly 1,900 people in Japan, with 56 deaths, as of Sunday afternoon.
Those numbers exclude 712 cases and 10 deaths from a cruise ship that was moored near Tokyo last month, the Japan Broadcasting Corp said.
Sixty-eight new cases were reported in the capital on Sunday.
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