Japan's boarder re-open to mid to long-term stay

TOPICS Japan’s relatively small number of testing. A rumour around flexible quarantine policy A learning tip: Meaning of Kento(検討) in Japan’s news Discussion: Should Japan open boarder? Last weekend, Health Minister Norihisa Tamura visited both Narita and Haneda airports, and he will take an action on doubling the airport testing to 20,000 on daily basis nation-widely. Yesterday, Japan Times published an article that Japan is set to exempt business travellers and returnees from the 14 day quarantine. This news is not confirmed by authorities publicly by far, but government sources says. NHK, the national broadcaster confirmed that “the government” will plan to decide the exemption. For the record the news was reported yesterday mid-day on their website. The news use a word Kento which means thinking about or considering something. For that reason, it may not happen, so do not say this is news, but rumour. It’s kind of scary that NHK publish government’s statements like this and we don’t know who is responsible for this decision if no one announce in public. I’m very very concerned. The big part of this news is that including journalists and those political elites are “Kento shiteiru” of everything. Be precise, please. According to the officials, nearly 8,500 people arrived Narita airport during the 10 days-long summer holiday in August. And only about 4,000 people arrived Haneda airport. Hold on Pete, why you picked up numbers from last August? That is only available and reliable source by the both airports’ immigration department. Earlier Tokyo and Japan has recorded above 200 and 600 cases respectively while the nation has lifted boarder restriction to mid to long term residents like international students and technical intern trainees. Prior to the games of Tokyo Olympics, next April Japan might allow tourists to stay without the hotel quarantine and tourists must provide their temperatures through apps. Should Japan open boarder? Countries are planning to re-open boarders to other countries, some of the states in Australia will be able to visit New Zealand as early as December. First of all, I can’t wait to take a plane. How many of you saw planes in sky, imagining the sensation of going to new countries? I did, a lot of times. Ignoring the fact that you are not going anywhere. The challenge of international travel is that we know what happens to society if we do that without a great policy. Counting local transmission and returned travellers are differentiated for a reason that the mapping transmissions in community. What I think is the most important thing is to track and contain the local transmission of the coronavirus in early stage. Like we saw the health experts tracked a super spreader of the Chadstone shopping centre’s case. A butcher could pass on virus to loads of people within a few days. To wrap up this self-driving argument surrounding the border issue, we need clear policy to track and contain outbreaks in case the local transmission happens by returned travellers. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20201008/k10012653591000.html https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/10/08/national/business-travelers-returnees-coronavirus-quarantine/