Originally published at: Japan suspends international arrivals for remainder of 2021 | Boing Boing
…
7 Likes
Well, shit
4 Likes
Thankfully there wasn’t an Olympic event to supersede sanity.
11 Likes
I was thinking Japan still had a low vaccination rate - they had such a bad roll-out before the Olympics, with so few people vaccinated at that point - but apparently they have a 78% vaccination rate now (and it still seems to be increasing). Which is impressive. I mean, it’s still not enough - given how transmissible the base version of covid is, and how variants erode protections, we really need as close to 100% vaccination rates as we can get (plus mask wearing) to beat this thing. Which, thanks to countries like the US, we’re not going to ever get.
They didn’t let in foreign visitors for that either, though (besides the competitors and some press, who were a small enough number that they all were tested and quarantined). The Olympics were a bad idea because hosting it was a double standard as they asked people to socially distance, but Japanese people were gathering together anyways to watch the Olympics, causing a(n entirely domestic) covid case spike.
6 Likes
So given:
So far the island nation has two confirmed Omicron variant cases.
isn’t it already “too late” for the close-the-borders counter-measure (testing/quarantine notwithstanding)? that is, according to the (axiomatic) law of bad virus discovery they already have a helluva more than two cases. -sigh-
2 Likes
they only had 83 cases yesterday total, and 1 death. their situation is a lot different than the us, and to me - at that level - it makes some sense to temporarily close or limit entry.
id argue testing all arrivals and having mandatory isolation upon arrival is still definitely a better approach, but at so few cases - they do actually have a chance to keep a lid on things ( unlike most other countries )
it gives a pause to see if the vaccines are effective against omnishambles so they can go from there
6 Likes
The new event is “Can you avoid COVID?”
10 Likes
You play, even if you don’t want to play. Stay safe folks.
6 Likes
Before this, Japan was only allowing in business travelers, people on work training programs and international students, so this wasn’t really a huge change.
The main issue now is getting citizens abroad home.
3 Likes
Already rescinded.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
