95 Global News Post 2
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By Nevin Thompson
Japan has banned non-resident foreigners in response to the emergence of Omicron [File: Kim Kyung-Hoon/ Reuters]
The author of the article, Nevin Thompson, said that it’s been almost 900 days since he last stepped foot in Japan due to COVID-19 and travel restrictions. Japan has one of the most strict pandemic travel restrictions, especially for foreigners, which causes them to not be able to enter the country and that’s exactly what happened to Thompson who is a journalist of foreign nationality. Japan has effectively banned the entry of non-Japanese visitors since the start of the pandemic that caused their annual visitor amount of 32 million in 2019 to drop to 190,000 by the end of last year.
It still remains almost impossible for any foreigners to enter unless one holds a Japanese permanent residence but the 7 days self-funded quarantine period is still required. While it’s been around two years since the start of the pandemic, ongoing COVID-19 threats still continue to negatively affect people’s lives and cause many families to be separated from each other. Additionally, many Japanese companies rely on international workers from abroad to make their business complete so they’re also extremely frustrated with the government and their policies because it has already caused countless social and economic damages. Businesses have recently begun to protest against the government from growing impatience of not being able to admit immigrant workers along with other organized protests against Japan’s COVID-19 policies all around the world.
Reference:
Japan Travel Advisory. United States Department of State. (2022, February 7). Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/japan-travel-advisory.html
McElhinney, D. (2021, December 2). Japan’s travel ban spells anguish for foreigners, businesses. Coronavirus pandemic | Al Jazeera. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/12/2/japans-travel-ban-spells-anguish-for-foreign-community
Thompson, N. (2022, February 5). Travel bans, Japan, and me. Global Voices. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://globalvoices.org/2022/02/05/travel-bans-japan-and-me/