Japan set to ban entry from the U.S. as early as next week

With all these provisions: if you&#x27;ve decided it would be a good idea to do, why not do it now? If it&#x27;s a good idea now, it&#x27;s going to be twice as good of an idea in three days. And it&#x27;s going to be four times as good of an idea in six. Etc. Over and over again the organs of governments announce decisions that would be a good idea today that don&#x27;t come into effect until a few days from now. Which means that the harm done will be doubled&#x2F;tripled&#x2F;... by the time the rule goes into effect.<p>I mean I don&#x27;t like this. I think Japan is great and I&#x27;m an American so this is a little embarassing. But if the Japanese have decided this is good to do, they should have done it yesterday. The next best time would be today.<p>(I do wonder if it&#x27;s not quite a bit too late for restrictions like this to be effective. Japan already has 1200 cases, and I have heard they have a US-like approach to testing -- that is, it&#x27;s shit. Unless they are magically different from every other country, the disease is already spreading in communities there. They will ultimately be forced to take the same steps that all other countries have taken to stop the virus, and that includes controlling the movements not just of foreign nationals&#x2F;Americans, but also their own citizens, into and out of the country.)

I mean, I can&#x27;t speak to how widespread the news is but Australia and NZ have already closed their borders to all foreigners. Europe has done the same, Peru etc etc. Should come as no surprise to anyone that Japan has done the same. If anything it has done it very late in the game.<p>Majority of the spread for unaffected countries is going to be inbound from the outside... In Australia, the inbound cases for corona from the US were like 50% of the total inbound. Which lead me to believe that the US is in more trouble than the US figures stated given the proportion and lack of testing.

Not too long ago a headline like this would be absolutely massive news. Now it barely even registers. Crazy times...

Japan is not anywhere close to the first to do this.<p>Many countries in SE Asia have pretty much banned <i>any</i> foreigner from entering. If you are a foreign resident, you go into quarantine for 2 weeks.

I looked into additional entry ban countries since other posters here seemed to wonder about non-US countries.<p>&quot;As of March 27th<p>Foreigners who have been in the following countries in the prior 14 days: Iceland, Ireland, [EDIT]Andorra, Italy, Iran, Estonia, Austria, Netherlands, San Marino, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Vatican, France, Belgium, Portugal, Malta, Monaco, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg.<p>Additionally, Hubei and Zhejiang provinces in China, as well as holders of passports from these regions.<p>Also a bunch of regions in South Korea (大邱広域市，慶尚北道の清道郡，慶 山市，安東市，永 川市，漆谷 テ グ ケイシヨウホクドウ チヨ ンド キヨンサン アン ドン ヨンチヤン チ ルゴク 郡，義城郡，星州郡，軍威郡 ウィソン ソンジユ グンウィ)<p>And lastly, passengers on the Westerdam cruise ship.<p>Source: Japan Ministry of Justice -- <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.moj.go.jp&#x2F;content&#x2F;001316538.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.moj.go.jp&#x2F;content&#x2F;001316538.pdf</a>

Part of 3 Blue 1 Brown&#x27;s excellent latest video simulates travel restrictions and suggests they&#x27;re not very effective: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;gxAaO2rsdIs?t=777" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;gxAaO2rsdIs?t=777</a> . However, that was only for cutting travel between all communities by a factor of 4, rather than completely banning travel between two particular communities &#x2F; countries.

Anyone know what Japan&#x27;s policy is regarding U.S. military service members stationed &#x2F; on shore leave in Japan?<p>That seems like a potentially serious back door for covid-19 spread. Especially given the tight quarters on naval vessels.

I have been watching the Cuomo NYS briefings for the past two weeks. This is what leadership looks like. He fucked up early with the &quot;we won&#x27;t shut down the economy&quot; bit but has come around. Similarly, Gov. Pritzker of Illinois has been on top of this, apart from his fuckup of allowing the primary elections to to go through putting people on top of each other to maintain a regular election cycle.<p>Mike DeWine has been the gold standard in kicking the primary election down the road. Elections should be held by mail-in ballot, I have been doing it in Illinois since 2004. Why Illinois decided to have a bunch of people crammed together in the Lincoln Park library last week boggles the mind and will be a stain on Pritzker&#x27;s and Illinois otherwise reasoned response to this health emergency.

No surprise here; Americans aren&#x27;t taking as seriously as they should while Japanese people are very clean and highly protective of their health. Hopefully people are still allowed to go back to Japan if that&#x27;s where their home is and only travel for pleasure or business is banned.

Doesn’t logic dictate that all international travel time and from all countries be stopped for a few months?

Seems normal since we are now the epicenter. I welcome it since this sort of decision might wake up our decision makers on where we really are.

if i was any given country i would have banned entry from all other countries 14 days ago!<p>airports, shut!

They have people pulling the emergency button on the subways if someone if coughing.

I would think the only people traveling to Japan these days are Japanese people. I wonder if the ban would also include people with Japanese passports.

As a Canadian I think there&#x27;s a pretty strong possibility that we get the virus under control while it still rages in the US for quite some time. I&#x27;m not really sure what that will mean.

Seems like a logical decision. Japan has managed to avoid a massive outbreak so far.

My only question is: &quot;Why hasn&#x27;t the world done this two weeks ago?&quot;<p>The US is failing to test on a massive scale, and the outbreak has been growing exponentially, week after week. Control measures are being taken, but on an inconsistent, fragmented basis.

Japan has had a low infection rate because of their strong mask-wearing culture. Western countries are experiencing higher rates of COVID-19 infections compared to Asian countries because of the West&#x27;s aversion to wearing masks. Please help me spread this message <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.maskssavelives.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.maskssavelives.org&#x2F;</a>

I have a very bad feeling that Japan is going to be ravaged by this pandemic.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.twitter.com&#x2F;motokorich&#x2F;status&#x2F;1243831219868991488" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.twitter.com&#x2F;motokorich&#x2F;status&#x2F;124383121986899...</a><p>&quot;Abe: “If an explosive spread of infection is already occurring right now, we cannot tell immediately. By time we have numbers in 2 weeks time, speed of rise in number of patients could no longer be controllable.” <i>Yet he announced no specific measures to prevent this scenario</i>.&quot;

Reconsidered my opinion:<p>I agree with a reply below. The primary determiner of how well a place responds to Covid seems to be their experience with SARS, and possibly other infectious respiratory diseases like TB.

Okay... but why specifically the United States? Shouldn&#x27;t they ban entry from just about <i>every</i> nation right now? Did the article just fail to mention existing travel bans for other nations?<p>The US has a very high number of confirmed cases, but it still pales in comparison to many other nations in terms of percent of population. Banning international travel is a reasonable precaution, but why specifically the US?<p>I can&#x27;t help but feel like many politicians around the globe have been focusing more on political chess first and the wellbeing of their citizens second.

This would&#x27;ve been a good idea before Chinese New Year for those coming from China but the Japanese government, in its infinite wisdom, didn&#x27;t want to miss out on the money all those tourists bring.<p>At least they&#x27;ve done well suppressing the true number of cases until the Olympics was cancelled. Even if it should&#x27;ve been bloody obvious they have been lying, most of the rest of the world - as per usual - decided that the Japanese government is trustworthy because Japan football fans take their rubbish home, or anime, or some other nebulous reason.