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© Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Japan starts requiring COVID tests for all passengers arriving from China
By MARI YAMAGUCHI TOKYO©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
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BreakingNews
Well done!. They should test everyone.
Elvis is here
Also, the United States is considering sampling wastewater taken from international aircraft to track any emerging new Covid-19 variants as infections surge in China. Why is this necessary?
Also, UK-based health experts estimate about 9,000 people day are now dying of the disease in China. Disgraceful. Three years to prepare and this???!!?!
China needs to start being open with its data.
Nemo
Its not clear from the article, but I would think that a negative test as a condition of boarding would be better than a Test upon arrival.
tamanegi
Welcome back to Japan the Chinese foreigner!
factchecker
Unless other countries (yes looking at you UK, Australia) start testing the Chinese, it won't be long before we're back to needing pre departure tests for everyone coming back to Japan. A major p.i.t.a. we could all do without.
Fighto!
Wise move.
For those hysterical types who will cry "discrimination against Chinese!" - China also requires a negative PCR test from incoming travellers. And Japan does not discriminate between the nationality of the incoming travellers.
This virus is completely out of control in China, the population are mostly unvaccinated and things will get much, much worse. We haven't seen anything yet.
EVERY nation should be testing travellers from China.
stormcrow
“Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.”
Victor Hugo
Jennie
@Fighto
Agreed. One of my colleagues very recently relocated to Shanghai and she took the test prior to boarding. Upon arrival she stayed at a quarantine facility at her own expensive for five days where she was tested on a daily basis. She then spent three more days at her home to complete the 8 day quarantine and testing as required by China.
She flew from Tokyo and she’s not Japanese. These measures being placed are not to discriminate people by their nationality but based on disembarking location and its conditions as a precautionary needs to minimize the risk in spreading the pandemic.
El Rata
Good move by the JP government but anyways China (PRC) is not a real country, it is a rogue state controlled by gangsters, people coming on PRC passports should be banned regardless the corona thing. Everyone knows the real China is the Republic of China whose government is on exile in Taiwan.
Lorem ipsum
Japan already requires either a negative covid test or proof of 3x vaccination from people from Europe, so not sure what the big deal is.
Bobo
It’s an endemic and will circulate the world regardless of borders. We had our borders closed to stop all the variants before and did they come in? Yep!! They never learn.
tigerjane
No people from China until they get their COVID cases down.
Stephen Chin
Would it not be a better idea to tell all Chinese passengers before they board a plane to Japan, "Please do not board a plane to Japan without proof of vaccination against Covid." If a passenger arrives in Japan and is found to have the virus, Japan must send a special ambulance to take him to a hospital and treat his illness. And how is Japan to know how many Japanese the Chinese passenger will infect? There will be so many complications and etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc. So "Please do not board a plane to Japan without proof of vaccination against Covid."
Hervé L'Eisa
Why allow any travelers from china at all?
Ricky Kaminski13
Stephen , unfortunately there’s a couple problems with that. Many Chinese I believe have already received their own versions of the vax that unfortunately don’t seem to work against Omicron and recent variants. Two, even if they were vaxed up, it doesn’t actually stop you from getting the virus as we have all found out over the last year or so, and three the trust issues. If we rely on them to do the right thing from their end, being upfront with test results, data and process, then we maybe left wanting.
Test upon arrival ( reckon they should just do a blanket ban, u til they get their act together ), then the traveler needs to pick up any expenses occurred. Good luck and otsukaresama to the staff at the four airports in Japan, still allowing flights in. I bet they are not thrilled about what’s coming. Also really feel for those Chinese who want out after living a dystopian nightmare for three years, really do, but blame your government not the messenger.
serendipitous1
This is mainly because the CCP is so afraid of a popular uprising if the truth is known, so deliberately chooses not to share correct data with the rest of the world. They say there were 4,000 new cases the other day when it is more likely 500,000 or more a day. Pathetic really.
Allen
Complete clown show! No reason to keep testing people. Especially when their still using the PCR test.
tora
No reason to do this. Illogical again, Japan. As from the Diamond Princess. These bureaucrats have their heads screwed on backwards.
Zizi
This virus is completely out of control in Japan.
smithinjapan
GOOD! Glad they are using their brains this time and not just testing non-Japanese and allowing Japanese to disembark and go home by public transport and immediately to family and/or work. This is truly how it should be, not out of fairness, but out of commonsense safety. Test everyone, isolate all infected. Period. Don't allow anyone to go home and trust them to isolate themselves after.
Sanjinosebleed
Yet the vaccines don’t stop transmission and anyone who has 3 doses is allowed in without any tests…yeh common sense in the extreme…meh
Hideomi Kuze
LDP Kishida government pretends to prevent Covid19 from China, but does nothing to domestic Covid19 deaths surge despite worst ever since 2020.
Japanese authorities who still hate PCR test still cling to low accurate antigen test only.
This country where learn nothing from this 3 years and increase Covid19 deaths year by year unlike international trend still prioritize economical benefit or cost saving than safety of citizen and will continue to repeat same failure.
Axel
I agree with most of this except for the international trend. The US and EU don't have a problem with inaccurate numbers of new infections and deaths because they simply refuse to release the data.
Logg
Japan earlier this year stopped requiring COVID-19 tests for entrants who had at least three shots - part of the country's careful easing of measures after virtually closing its borders to foreign tourists for about two years.
Meanwhile, later this year, Covid rates are at their highest in this country.
A few thousand tourists entering Japan are going to make a difference?
denny
Saw news story,,,one month ago...flight from China to Italy....upon arrival 54% of passengers tested positive..I wonder???? can one believe the covid test papers issued by China for travel...I doubt everything else the govt says...just me..
WA4TKG
Just ban them all together from entry.
Pukey2
gambare nippon:
Is that why I, as a non-Japanese PR of Japan, couldn't leave Japan during most of 2020 because I then wouldn't be allowed back? No other country banned PRs while allowing citizens to travel freely back and forth. Countries treated both the same, either allowing both back or, in the case of some authoritarian countries like Australia, didn't allow either back.
Pukey2
Looks like this is the place to avoid
Happy Day
How is this different from US travelers? US travelers are required to show a negative PCR test or proof of three shots.
tora
So 3 shots of some western vaxone that doesn't stop transmission at all, and can come in? Absolutely meaningless.
Yet I know plenty of people here who have had no shots at all and never had symptoms; yet people with 2,3,4 have symtpoms some quite severe, some mild. No pattern that I can determine. So why ask Chinese for PCR tests when others coming in could likely have it and just have no shsymtoms even though had 3 shots?. And why aren't people "fully vaxed"(2shots) allowed in?
Asking Chinese travelers to take a shot on arrival is absolutely meaningless. Just get rid of all testing and all vax passports and open up for god's sake. You're gonna have to do that eventually anyway since it's way past endemic here in Japan now.
This is purely political.
Strangerland
"One has to be an extremist, to be balanced"
Ok bruh, that comment made you look very intelligent.
1glenn
I read that the bivalent vaccine, the one that only 15% of Americans have gotten, works pretty well against the latest Covid variant from China, but that the original vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are not very effective. Which avoids the point that in China they use neither the better original mRNA vaccines, nor the latest bivalent vaccine, despite being offered for free from the USA.
tora
And another thing: so a jumbo plane load of Chinese travellers arrives in Japan at say 50% postive upon PCR testing, yet none with symtpoms. And this happens plane load after plane load. The designtated facilities are going to be quickly over run. And in any event, just getting to the facilities is going to spread it, since it is so contagious.
This policy from Japan reads like some kind of cruel early new year's April fool joke.
painkiller
The country is now reporting about 200,000 known daily cases.
Almost as many as in Japan, which is considered a highly vaccinated country.