Japan PM Kishida announces tightening travel regulations over Omicron until New Year

Japan's tight travel regulations will be extended until at least early next year, to prevent the spread of the newly identified COVID variant Omicron, asserted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The announcement comes after the health ministry's coronavirus advisory council advised the government on December 16, to strengthen security at ports and airports and conduct PCR screens to discover variations for all COVID-19 cases, assuming that the virus will spread across the country sooner or later.

The administration previously stated that the measures, which prohibit new foreign entry and require returning Japanese nationals and foreign residents to quarantine in government-designated facilities, would be in effect for about a month until the end of the year. According to Kishida, the government will stick to the guidelines until further information about the Omicron variant becomes available. 

Kyodonews reported Kishida, as saying, "We will study the situation after the year-end and New Year's (holiday)."

Duration between second and third doses of vaccines to be lowered

On Friday, Kishida revealed a plan to reduce the time frame between the second and third doses of coronavirus vaccines from the current eight months to six months. As Omicron spread around the world, Japan reversed an easing of controls late last month. The country currently has one of the toughest border laws in the world, allowing only citizens and foreign residents to enter.

COVID-19 infections have dropped substantially since a lethal wave in August. Whereas, the Omicron variant has infected at least 65 people in Japan so far. The cases were discovered largely during airport inspections and quarantine. However, after a lady in her 20s tested positive for Omicron while quarantining at her residence in Tokyo after arriving from Texas on December 8, the threat of a communal spread of the variant has escalated.

So far, the government has denied that the recent cases are signs of community infection, claiming that they are tightly monitored and traceable cases that slipped through initial airport testing. On Saturday, 15 more cases of the Omicron strain were verified. 13 of them were discovered at airport security checkpoints, with two more in Okinawa Prefecture. A 50-year-old American civilian worker at the US military's Camp Hansen is one of the two cases in Okinawa. Her Japanese husband, who is in his late sixties, is the other. They dwell on the outskirts of the military installation.

(With inputs from agencies)

Image: AP