Rick comments

The same quarantine rules should be applied and enforced uniformly to all entrants from overseas regardless of nationality or departure location. In my view, it doesn’t make sense to have different quarantine requirements based on for example which US state you‘re coming from. All countries should be treated the same. You either have contracted the virus or not. Decide upon a suitable quarantine period and apply it to all. Also, diplomats, service members, and other officials should be included. You either apply rules consistently across the board or just forget about the whole quarantine thing.

I’m all for more digital entry procedures. There’s way too much forms and papers to be filled in. Why do permanent residents still need to fill in those pesky entry/exit forms? It’s beyond stupid and surely could be done all digitally. Then again, we’re just ‘tourists’ here. Sad, but true.

Just returned from Europe and am currently on my 4th day of forced 6 days hotel quarantine at a Villa Fontaine in central Tokyo. This is my third time returning during the pandemic. The previous two times was fairly ‘comfortable’ in terms of being able to quarantine at home for two weeks. This time around, the whole process is just totally over the top. It took 7 hours from stepping off the plane at Haneda to arriving in my hotel room; two hours of which were spent waiting in the bus in front of the hotel for ‘check-in.’ The hotel room is fine, but the cold bento food is really really crap. Brought my own food to survive. The lack of movement/exercise is really stressful. Besides having to report your health status twice on a hotel site and the official government MySOS app, you actually need to report in your location twice a day and respond to a video call once a day. This is so ridiculous. It’s not like I can actually skip out of my 10F room unnoticed and go anywhere. It’s literally like prison except your door isn’t locked. Since leaving Europe, I’ve undergone 3 Covid tests with a fourth one coming up in 2 days. And yes, I’m fully vaccinated. On my sixth day, after 4 negative Covid tests, I still will have another 8 days quarantine at home. I mean, I’m all for prevention measures and such, but this is beyond overkill. There were three US forces guys on my flight and they just went through customs and were greeted with hugs and kisses by quite a few folks in the arrival lobby; and then they all went their merry way. No hotel quarantine etc. I mean what’s the point of all of this?!?!