Japan to fully lift the state of emergency for the first time in 6 months </h1>
For the first time since April, Japan will lift all state of emergency measures.
The move was announced by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at a conference, where he noted that the number of new cases and severity of infections have drastically dropped.
The success behind Japan’s recent decision was twofold: the country increased the amount of vaccinations given over the summer, which properly prepared locals for a dramatic fifth wave at the beginning of autumn.
This is great news for travelers who are planning to visit the land of the rising sun because they may soon be able to fill out the Japan online visa application, as the country is rumored to open its borders in mid-2022.
The coronavirus situation in Japan
At the beginning of the pandemic, Japan was one of the hardest-hit countries in East Asia.
During the beginning of October 2020, Japan overtook China in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. Almost a year later, on August 7, 2021, Japan reached a million total cases.
At the moment, Japan has around 1.72 million total cases for a country with almost 126 million people.
At its peak on August 20, there were almost 26 thousand cases in one day. This was mainly caused by the fact that Japan was the host of this years’ summer games, which ran from the end of July to August 8th.
However, the country has been making great strides to reduce the number of new cases. There have been less than a thousand daily cases within the last two weeks, including a record low number of 141 new cases on October 15.
Likewise, Japan has been heavily rolling out vaccine initiatives over the summer. At the moment, about 76 percent of the population has at least one dose, while 68 percent are fully vaccinated.
COVID-19 restrictions in Japan: Then and now
The first state of emergency in Japan was declared on April 7th, 2020, almost two months after the first case made its way into the country.
The capital, Tokyo, as well as Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo, and Fukuoka prefectures were the first to fall under the new state of emergency. However, two weeks later, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expanded the declaration to include every prefecture within the country.
Although Japan’s state of emergency measures were not as restrictive as other countries, there were still some rules that had to be followed.
For example, restaurants were asked to close early and were banned from serving alcohol, while locals were urged to avoid non-essential outings and refrain from traveling between prefectures. Other policies included wearing masks, social distancing, and switching to remote work when possible.
Because of these measures, Japan’s economy was seriously impacted. In fact, some 17% of COVID-19 related bankruptcies in Japan were made up solely of bars and food establishments.
The latest state of emergency measures were issued in April of this year and, after six months of continuous extensions, were lifted across all prefectures on September 30th, 2021.
Although Japan may not be under a state of emergency anymore, the government is still considering keeping some restrictions in place. For example, Tokyo is considering keeping restaurants’ working hours the same as they were during the state of emergency, although alcohol will be allowed.
The future of travel: When will Japan reopen?
One good thing to come from the lifting of state of emergency policies is an increase in domestic tourism.
All Nippon Airways, Japan’s biggest airline, recently booked more than 50,000 airline tickets, which is an incredible tenfold increase from the previous month. On a similar note, popular theme parks like Tokyo Disney and Universal Studios Japan are already planning to increase the maximum number of daily visitors from 5,000 to 10,000.
However, many travelers around the world are eager to know when Japan is planning to reopen its borders and allow foreigners in again.
At the moment, Japan has some of the strictest entry restrictions in the world, as citizens from less than a dozen countries can enter Japan freely. Most arrivals are expected to undergo a 10-day quarantine, as well as additional measures and tests.
While a concrete date has not been set yet, the government is aiming to reopen to international traffic sometime in mid 2022, depending on the epidemiological situation.
The Japan Tourism Agency is planning to conduct trials on tourists and study the effects of vaccine certificates and testing. Similarly, Japan’s new tourism minister, Tetsuo Saito, recently stated that the government is working on creating new programs to reach its goal of attracting 60 million foreign visitors to Japan by 2030.
Although the future of Japan’s tourism is still up in the air, these new initiatives will hopefully allow the country to open soon.
