The Japanese government has asked airlines to stop accepting new bookings on flights to Japan over heightened concerns about the new omicron virus variant. The announcement from the Japanese transport ministry followed the news that a second traveler from overseas had tested positive for the variant.
The Japanese transport ministry says the request was made to all airlines with international flights to Japan and not just Japanese carriers. The ministry also said that, at this time, it was simply a request and not a mandate. The recommendation applies to all passengers, including Japanese citizens, and is effective today, Wednesday, December 1st.
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Japan had already tightened its borders
Japan had already tightened its strict border control measures, banning all non-Japanese citizens from 12 southern African nations from entering the island country. When reporting on the move, The Japan Times quotes a spokesperson from the ministry of transport as saying,
“We have asked airlines to halt accepting all new incoming flight reservations for one month starting December 1, 2021.”
They added that bookings that had already been made would not be affected.
Fearing the worst from the new COVID-19 mutation, Japan had already tightened its rigid quarantine rules for Japanese citizens and others coming from several dozen foreign countries and territories.
Japan has two confirmed cases of the omicron strain
The first case of the new omicron variant of COVID-19 was detected on Tuesday and involved a man arriving in the country from Namibia. A second case was then confirmed today and involved a passenger from Peru who had entered the country in November.
Rather than tough lockdowns like the ones seen in Europe and other parts of the world, being an island nation, Japan believed it could control the spread of the coronavirus by monitoring its borders. It accomplished this by virtually sealing its borders to anyone coming from outside for a large part of 2020.
Despite the harsh measures, Japan saw a surge in cases during the summer. While it has only registered double-digit numbers of new daily cases, it has still seen 18,360 deaths related to COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
Japan has started giving vaccine booster shots
Around 77% of Japan’s adult population is fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Today, the government announced that it would start giving booster jabs to people who received their second dose eight months ago.
Closing the world’s third-largest economy to non-Japanese travelers is a tactic Japan is familiar with and had only just tentatively opened up this month to business travelers and students. By closing its borders again to outsiders, Japan must now count the human and economic costs. During the many previous months that Japanese borders were closed, thousands of people had to put their life plans on hold and were left in limbo, not knowing what the future would hold.
So far, there has been no reaction to the news from airlines, who are undoubtedly worried that other countries may follow Japan’s lead and ask for similar measures to be taken.
Do you think airlines will comply with the request to take no future bookings on inbound international flights for a month? Please tell us what you think in the comments.
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