Amanda comments

Of course, Thailand’s solution to everything is to just wear a mask. Pathetic!

It's over. And it's been over!

The pandemic ended a long time ago.

Based.

Masks are not an “effective anti-virus protection,” and that’s not why Japanese have ever worn them.

Good. Covid-19 is no longer an emergency, nor a pandemic.

These articles are so stupid. Anyone with more than two brain cells knows sakura forecasts aren't remotely accurate until the middle or even the end of March. There are 1,000 things that could move the first bloom forward or backward between now and then!

This is nothing to celebrate. Border controls have never worked to stop or slow the spread of covid into Japan, and they aren't going to start now. This sets a terrible precedent for the future.

Tamanegi, I thought the same thing!

How many of Japan’s covid “hospitalizations” are just hypochondriacs with the sniffles and an incidental positive test result?

How many non-Japanese lives did the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki save?

“No restrictions,” says the only country in the world banning foreign tourists while its own citizens are free to come and go.

@jack Your question is irrelevant, since no other civilized country is still banning foreign tourists while allowing its own citizens to move freely.

Let’s pose it another way. What would people have to say if the US, EU or UK maintained Japan-style border settings?

@jack Pretty rich for a foreign resident (aka long-stay tourist) like you to say that

I find it funny that some of the more hysterical posters here are urging strengthening of border restrictions. Japan will soon have the highest rate of covid cases in the world! If anything, there should be outbound travel restrictions to prevent Japanese from infecting the world.

And at the end of the day, the BA5 variant was brought in by Japanese people who are not subject to the bans you want put back in place. Japanese people brought in all the earlier variants, too, and will bring in future ones, whether or not foreign tourists are allowed to come back without booking monitor tours.

Japan, in spite of maintaining the world’s most draconian border controls outside of China, is logging nearly the most covid cases of any country in the world. A sane country would accept the failure of these controls and normalize entry policies.

But not Kishida’s Japan.

@Thunderbird2 JNTO, which is a private organization, doesn't know anything one way or another. They get their information at the same time all of us do.

Not "opening up 100%"

lol, Japan is not even open 1% of what it was before COVID

@BigYen I understand feeling cynical, but what makes you think Japan will remain closed to normal tourists until next spring (7-8 months away)? Once the election passes, I'm not sure what reason there will be to continue restricting entry to monitor tourists.