Japan to end COVID-19 border controls on May 8 Kyodo News

Japan will end the current border control measures on travelers from overseas on May 8 in line with its decision to categorize COVID-19 as a common disease the same day, the government said Monday, in a major shift toward normalizing social and economic activities. The government will simultaneously start a new genomic surveillance program, under which entrants with symptoms such as fever are tested voluntarily, with the aim of detecting new infectious diseases. Travelers arriving at five major airports -- Narita, Haneda, Chubu, Kansai and Fukuoka -- will be subject to the new framework, which is set to start when the legal status of COVID-19 is downgraded to the same category as seasonal influenza early next month. Ahead of the across-the-board lifting of border control measures, Japan will ease those on all arrivals from mainland China from Wednesday and give them the option of entering the country by presenting proof of being inoculated with three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Currently, visitors from mainland China must present proof of a negative coronavirus test taken 72 hours or less before departure. "We have decided to alter the tentative measures currently in place in light of the infection status at home and abroad, as well as border control steps taken by other Group of Seven nations," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said in a news conference, adding the government will continue its sample testing for arrivals from mainland China at airports. In late December, Japan introduced blanket COVID-19 testing for all arrivals from mainland China amid an explosion in infections in the country after Beijing drastically relaxed its stringent "zero-COVID" policy that had involved lockdowns and quarantines. In early January, it further tightened border controls for visitors from the region by requiring proof of a negative test. In March, however, the Japanese government ended the blanket testing for such visitors but started random testing at airports after finding that the number of those testing positive for COVID-19 had dropped.

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