Japan to bar all new foreign visitors as omicron fears grow

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Monday that Japan will close borders to new entries of foreign nationals, including business travelers, foreign students and foreign interns from Tuesday as fears of the new omicron variant of the coronavirus grow. "This is a preventive, emergency measure to avoid a worst-case scenario," Kishida told reporters at the Prime Minister's Office. The entry ban does not affect foreign residents re-entering Japan and Japanese nationals. But Japanese citizens and foreign residents re-entering Japan traveling from 14 countries where cases of the omicron variant have been confirmed will be required to quarantine in government-designated facilities, Kishida said. "This is an extraordinary measure for the time being just until we know more about the omicron variant," Kishida said. The omicron variant may be more infectious than other strains, but relatively little is known about how transmissible and better able to evade the body’s immune responses it is. The prime minister urged the public to remain calm, wear masks and maintain social distancing, stressing that Japan has the highest vaccination rate among Group of Seven countries and that it still remains relatively early since a large portion of the population received their second shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. Kishida also said that there had been one traveler from Namibia who tested positive for COVID-19. It was unclear if the person had been infected with the omicron variant, but the sample had been sent to a lab to make that determination, a process that was expected to take four to five days, he added.<br/>