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Japan set to ban entry from the U.S. as early as next week
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- duxup 7y agoSeems like a logical decision. Japan has managed to avoid a massive outbreak so far.
- needle0 7y agoNot anymore. Tokyo is already [edit: entered the hockey-stick part of] an exponential trajectory as of around 5 days ago. https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en Every press conference ending with Koike (Tokyo governor) or Abe (PM) babbling along with no material countermeasures being announced has been making me feel all the more dreadful. They needed to have already shut down everything long ago. We will be joining the world's other major outbreak cities in a week or two.
- hugh-avherald 7y agoAll countries started on an exponential trajectory.
- cgarrigue 7y agoThe interesting thing is that like many people, they guessed that a lot of people would be contaminated during the 3-day weekend a week ago (great weather, cherry blossoms, and last carefree moments for people who will start their first job on April 1st). It's not innocent that Abe called for postponing the Olympics just before that weekend. Koike could have asked the parks and popular venues (department stores) to be closed a week ago, but instead only asked people to refrain from going. What was poised to happen happened, and the number of infected people exploded half a week later.
- avparker 7y agoWe haven't even seen the numbers from last weekend. It takes on average 5 days for infected people to show symptoms, and they only test once you have fever for 3-4 days (I can verify this first-hand), then 1-2 days for the test results to come back. That 9-11 days average. We will see a spike later this week based on last weekends warm weather and hanami.
- bouncycastle 7y agoI am currently in Japan and I can tell you it's like nothing happened. Today is especially a nice sunny day and the park I'm at is crowded with people enjoying their annual Hanami picnics. I am being told that since people are wearing masks then it should be OK. Although it looks like the majority aren't wearing them, probably because they are impossible to buy now. We will find out the results after 2 weeks I guess.
- darkteflon 7y agoI’m also in Japan. I’m shocked at how complacent people have been. It’s like city after city worldwide, people know what’s coming down the tracks but think it doesn’t apply to them. If we dodge this bullet it will be an absolute miracle.
- quelltext 7y agoThat's more cases for sure over the last few days, but it's not exponential growth (yet). Sure, it's likely going to grow like that, but the recent data isn't evidence for it.
- ridewinter 7y agoNot too long ago a headline like this would be absolutely massive news. Now it barely even registers. Crazy times...
- duxup 7y agoI like to think of it as a good indicator that people do often consider the circumstances rather than just have a knee jerk reaction.
- yurlungur 7y agoI wonder if this pandemic will have long lasting effects on international travel. It seems possible that going into the future stricter health screening may become routine and certain travel restrictions may stay in place for a prolonged period of time. Same goes for certain other measures I guess.
- mschuster91 7y agoNot that long lasting, at least for country/continental blocks. As soon as vaccines are widely available, I'd expect that the only thing that remains from the corona crisis is a visa/immigration requirement of proof of vaccination/immunity.
- roenxi 7y agoA basic rule-of-thumb is this is a 1 in 100 year event; because the last time something comparable happened was the Spanish Flu. However, a hypothesis that international travel is the major enabler reduces this to more of a 1 in 20 year event (SARS, MERS, Ebola, etc, etc all were near misses that were a little less slippery). Swine flu was also pretty bad. We might be able to afford this once a century. We can't afford to do this once every 20 years. It is quite possible that it makes economic sense to permanently cripple international travel by introducing mandatory 2-week quarantines on arrival or somesuch.
- mschuster91 7y ago
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y agoWith all these provisions: if you've decided it would be a good idea to do, why not do it now? If it's a good idea now, it's going to be twice as good of an idea in three days. And it'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't come into effect until a few days from now. Which means that the harm done will be doubled/tripled/... by the time the rule goes into effect. I mean I don't like this. I think Japan is great and I'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. (I do wonder if it'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'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/Americans, but also their own citizens, into and out of the country.)
- whymauri 7y ago>The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States. That's probably the answer. Some amount of heads-up is owed to Japanese nationals. A Taiwanese friend was in a similar situation w.r.t. Taiwan closing borders. Uncertainty of timeline and parameters can be incredibly disruptive for citizens trying to travel back to their home country. They might not have permanent lodging in the U.S. (students, tourists, visiting scholars/scientists and more).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gruez 7y ago>That's probably the answer. Some amount of heads-up is owed to Japanese nationals. Why not ban foreigners immediately, then ban nationals a few days later?
- nopinsight 7y agoReconsidered my opinion: 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.
- modwest 7y agono
- nopinsight 7y agoIf you have reasons or evidence, please explain.
- modwest 7y agoI presented as much reason or evidence to support my post as you did.
- nopinsight 7y agoIf you disagree or downvote, please explain. I'd like to hear reasons and evidence.
- frequentnapper 7y agolol. shouldn't you first present evidence and reasons as opposed to ideology?
- maxander 7y agoPeople are probably downvoting you because it's generally frowned upon to make baseless "just-so" claims, especially in something as difficult to make credible claims in as geopolitics, and especially when it asserts the superiority of some groups over others (or appears to.) That all being said, there have been studies of how "meritocratic" different societies are (albeit I don't know how that is operationalized) and there will be very quantitative measures of how well each country weathers the pandemic; someone could certainly (when the data is in) check to see how those features tend to relate.
- mistermann 7y agoI have a very bad feeling that Japan is going to be ravaged by this pandemic. https://mobile.twitter.com/motokorich/status/1243831219868991488 https://mobile.twitter.com/motokorich/status/124383121986899... "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.” Yet he announced no specific measures to prevent this scenario."
- mistermann 7y agoDownvoters might want to read that full Twitter thread. You may not appreciate the potential gravity of what I've italicized above, but there are comments in the thread from people who do.
- tinyhouse 7y agoI 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.
- brigandish 7y agoI was due to fly to and from the UK in April with a ticket purchased months ago, I won't have been the only one.
- yalogin 7y agoDoesn’t logic dictate that all international travel time and from all countries be stopped for a few months?
- standardUser 7y agoEven for foreign nationals and those with a legal right to residency? Many nations have thousands and thousands of citizens spread all throughout the world for all kinds of different reasons. Some are on humanitarian missions, some are journalists, some have families abroad. Should they be denied a right to return to their legal country of citizenship, even if they submit to quarantine measurers? A comprehensive ban on international travel is perhaps more aggressive of a measure than it seems on its face.
- tanilama 7y agoYou can have legal rights, but doesn't mean airlines should offer you a seat.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoOne improvement over a full travel ban would be mandatory government-run 2-week(?) quarantine every time someone arrives from abroad.
- adele11 7y agoAustralia is now requiring a 2 week hotel isolation
- cyphar 7y agoExcept the hotel is in the middle of the city, and there are other non-quarantined residents living in the same hotel who are almost certainly going to get sick. I think the correct solution is what Vietnam has done -- convert military barracks into a quarantine centers so that suspected cases cannot infect the general public. This is also much better than the self-isolation policy that they had until a few days ago (because food and other basic services are provided to the isolated people, so there's no risk of people coming into contact with others when trying to get groceries delivered).
- vkou 7y agoMy only question is: "Why hasn't the world done this two weeks ago?" 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.
- grej 7y agoEvery good idea should have been done before it was done. Better late than never. At least testing has ramped up in the US considerably now. As someone in the US, I wish we would implement a lot more in the way of domestic travel restrictions right now. If we’re not willing to do that, then who can blame other countries for restricting us?
- Animats 7y agoThe SF Bay Area did. We are 12 days into lockdown here. In a week or so we will know if it worked.
- Gibbon1 7y agoA lot of bay area tech companies implemented work from home policies a week before that.
- strictnein 7y agoThe US is currently testing ~100k people each day: https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/ https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/ The failure at the beginning was not to have capacity ready. The huge US medical system and its very, very large medical industry has finally gotten pointed in the right direction in regards to testing.
- Barrin92 7y agoThe testing capacity is good now but the response to the actual pandemic is a disaster. If you have the president talk about packed churches on Easter you can soon save yourself the testing because it's going to be hard to find someone who isn't infected
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoAnyone know what Japan's policy is regarding U.S. military service members stationed / on shore leave in Japan? That seems like a potentially serious back door for covid-19 spread. Especially given the tight quarters on naval vessels.
- swixmix 7y ago"Pacific Fleet orders 14-day gap between port visits for 7th Fleet ships during coronavirus outbreak" [1] See PDF file titled "CNFJ Liberty Restrictions effective March 25, 2020". Looks like liberty is limited to on-base. [2] [1]: https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacific-fleet-orders-14-day-gap-between-port-visits-for-7th-fleet-ships-during-coronavirus-outbreak-1.620641 https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacific-fleet-orders-14... [2]: https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrj.html/ https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrj.html/
- JimTheMan 7y agoI mean, I can'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. 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.
- Gibbon1 7y agoI don't fault Japan for closing their borders to the US. The US's response to the pandemic is frightening. Federal leadership appears to be focused on denial while setting things up to fix the blame on their political opponents when it all goes sideways. Leaving everything up to state and local governments. Some of which are just as bad as the executive branch.
- threeseed 7y agoTrump has also indicated that he is going to refuse to comply with oversight requirements for the corporate bailout fund in the recent stimulus bill. Makes you wonder if he's more concerned with bailing out his struggling Trump hotels than the coronavirus.
- billfruit 7y agoAtlest they didn't close borders to their own citizens, that's what some countries have done, and I feel is a terrible thing to do, closing doors on one's own nationals.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- billfruit 7y agoThat is good insight regards US numbers. I hope an estimate can be made of US numbers from the number of US arrivals in other countries who turned out positive.
- drpgq 7y agoAs a Canadian I think there's a pretty strong possibility that we get the virus under control while it still rages in the US for quite some time. I'm not really sure what that will mean.
- tenpies 7y agoI have seen this mentioned, but I'm honestly now sure why Canadians think this. What special measures did Canada take early on? What makes Canada exceptional compared to the US who at least banned some flights? The only difference is that the media doesn't absolutely despise Trudeau, but we're effectively the same. The US is actually surpassing us in testing at this point and some of our most populous provinces have multiple day backlogs in their testing. Our population isn't quite all Florida, but Vancouver very much acted like the Florida of Canada up until just recently. Sure, we can smugly point to our healthcare system, but our healthcare system hasn't scaled to anywhere the capacity the US has in regards to testing. Don't get me wrong, I hope you're right, but I am not sure where the Canadian smug exceptionalism comes from in this case. From a policy perspective we're basically the same as the US. I'm actually kind of worried we'll get it worst here because in January we were in active denial: "the real pandemic is racism" mode. In February we were shipping PPE from our own reserves to China to help them out. In March, we took the "enhanced" screening measure of giving travellers a pamphlet in the airport. We are so comically behind the curve that our only consolation price is to look at the worst of the US media for consolation that maybe we won't have it so bad. It wasn't until the global markets took a nose dive that Canada really realized this might actually affect them.
- ModernMech 7y ago> The US is actually surpassing us in testing at this point and some of our most populous provinces have multiple day backlogs in their testing. The US testing numbers are largely due to NY and WA. Per capita the US is still behind most countries. States like MI that are turning into a hot spot are way behind on testing. Florida, our 3rd most populous state with 21 million residents, has tested only 40k people. https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1244016316127662080 https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/12440163161276620...
- gameswithgo 7y agoif i was any given country i would have banned entry from all other countries 14 days ago! airports, shut!
- fasteddie31003 7y agoJapan 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's aversion to wearing masks. Please help me spread this message http://www.maskssavelives.org/ http://www.maskssavelives.org/
- ojbyrne 7y agoIt seems more likely at this point that they have a low infection rate because they aren’t testing.
- 2019-nCoV 7y agoTheir positivity rate (5.1%) suggests otherwise.
- brigandish 7y agoI don't know how many times this is going to come up on these page but this is unsupported by any study for the kind of masks people actually wear and for a non-clinical setting, and anyone who has spent any time here will know it's rubbish. Just last night my wife was telling me about a conversation with her work colleagues about masks. She wears one per day, one to work and the same one for the way home - this is already going outside the bounds of any study I've read. Her colleagues told her that she must be rich to use that many masks, they use the same one for two or three days in a row. Just one of the many anecdotes you can hear and confirm with your own experience if you're ever here. I have others, the ones about coughing and sneezing behaviour in public will make you shudder.
- kevinpet 7y agoIf you claim "these specific details aren't supported by studies" that's compelling evidence if studies have been done, or would have a reason to be done, or if there's reason to believe the other studies that support similar conclusion are sufficiently different to not be relevant.
- brigandish 7y agoThis would've been a good idea before Chinese New Year for those coming from China but the Japanese government, in its infinite wisdom, didn't want to miss out on the money all those tourists bring. At least they've done well suppressing the true number of cases until the Olympics was cancelled. Even if it should'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.
- Jommi 7y agoAny sources/links indicating that the numbers are VASTLY different than communicated on the news?
- brigandish 7y agoThe numbers would surely come out in a study later in the year, if not next year, as they do for other kinds of cover up here[1][2] or simply because it's hard to find out as it's happening in such a short time over such a large area during a pandemic. Personally, I'm basing it on: - The propensity for cover ups to happen (even on a small scale, it's part of the culture of maintaing wa) - The strange lack of testing while the Olympics was still a possibility - The ease with which deaths could be covered up given the system here and things like the already mentioned kodokushi deaths - The many anecdotes of people being turned away for tests[3] - The knowledge that Japan and the Japanese are not special, so their position as an outlier must have some reason beyond "they wear masks" (how did wearing masks help in China?) while there are barely any measures to prevent transmission in place - I like Ockham's Razor [1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/kodokushi-in-aging-japan-thousands-die-alone-and-unnoticed-every-year-their-bodies-often-go-unnoticed-for-weeks.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/kodokushi-in-agi... [2] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/31/national/crime-legal/osaka-police-failed-to-report-81000-crimes-between-2008-and-2012-probe/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/31/national/crime-... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusJapan/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusJapan/
- starpilot 7y agoSpeaking of Japan, I told patio11 to stay in his lane and be blocked me :(((
- CivBase 7y agoOkay... but why specifically the United States? Shouldn't they ban entry from just about every nation right now? Did the article just fail to mention existing travel bans for other nations? 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? I can'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.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoInternational travel is already effectively disabled around the world, this ban is just preventing a few stragglers from going.
- pmachinery 7y ago> but why specifically the United States? [...] but why specifically the US? Possibly because, as it says in the second line of the article, the US now has the highest number of confirmed cases (more than 124,000 currently, from around 660,000 confirmed worldwide).
- CivBase 7y agoI addressed that. > 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.
- dannyr 7y agoFrom https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel-restrictions.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel-restricti... As of March 15, Japan has banned entry to foreign travelers with Chinese passports issued by Hubei and Zhejiang provinces, as well as those who have visited regions in China that have been affected by the virus, South Korea, Iran or Italy within the last 14 days. On March 18, Japan added two provinces of Switzerland, four states in Spain and the entire country of Iceland to the list. The ban will become effective at midnight on March 19. The government said that starting March 21, travelers from 38 countries would need to self-quarantine for 14 days in facilities approved by the Japanese authorities. Those countries include the 26 members of the European Schengen countries, as well as Ireland, Andorra, Iran, Britain, Egypt, Cyprus, Croatia, San Marino, the Vatican, Bulgaria, Monaco and Romania.
- refurb 7y agoJapan is not anywhere close to the first to do this. Many countries in SE Asia have pretty much banned any foreigner from entering. If you are a foreign resident, you go into quarantine for 2 weeks.
- paulhodge 7y agoThe fact that Japan is only banning US travelers, instead of banning all foreigners, is pretty newsworthy.
- khuey 7y agoPlenty of other countries are already on that list.
- dannyr 7y agoNope. Over 30 countries are banned: https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel-restrictions.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel-restricti...
- Legogris 7y agoIf anything, it's remarkable that US wasn't already banned together with Schengen countries last week.
- tyingq 7y agoSeems 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.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hkiely 7y agoThey have people pulling the emergency button on the subways if someone if coughing.
- miguelmota 7y agoNo surprise here; Americans aren'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's where their home is and only travel for pleasure or business is banned.
- idlewords 7y agoJapanese people are also not taking this very seriously. People in Kyoto and Tokyo were out in large numbers last weekend, no social distancing measures visible.
- hkmurakami 7y agoI looked into additional entry ban countries since other posters here seemed to wonder about non-US countries. "As of March 27th 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. Additionally, Hubei and Zhejiang provinces in China, as well as holders of passports from these regions. 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) And lastly, passengers on the Westerdam cruise ship. Source: Japan Ministry of Justice -- http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001316538.pdf http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001316538.pdf
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoI’m a bit surprised they are letting people from China in at all. Wouldn’t a blanket ban like they are doing with the USA just be easier and more reliable to implement?
- hkmurakami 7y agoMy understanding is that new cases of the virus in the coastal cities of China are quite low, and that they have a heavy handed testing/monitoring system in place with personal accountability given to the party reps stationed in each residence complex. Also, Japan-China will always have trade and geopolitical considerations, for better or for worse. Lots of Japanese companies have offices and manufacturing plants in China that they'd like to continue operating as well as they can.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoThey’ve shut off zhejiang, which is the richest coastal province and the heavy weight of trade...not to mention it abuts shanghai. I’m guessing that travel between japan and China is effectively disabled along with the rest of the world, given that even if a Chinese wanted to visit japan, they are looking at a 2 week quarantine on the way back, perhaps also on the way there.
- jdkee 7y agoI have been watching the Cuomo NYS briefings for the past two weeks. This is what leadership looks like. He fucked up early with the "we won't shut down the economy" 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. 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's and Illinois otherwise reasoned response to this health emergency.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y agoCuomo is what talking a big talk looks like. Leadership is SK, Taiwan, S'pore, and yes, even China. Solving problems is leadership. Posturing is something else, and it's what Cuomo's been doing.
- jdkee 7y agoHe is responding to the crisis in his state. He is: 1. Publicly acknowledging the factual state on the ground. 2. Explaining what his administration is doing to combat the crisis, including his asks from the Feds for his foreseeable needs. 3. Calling up retired healthcare workers to address a soon to be overtaxed medical situation. 4. Attempting to prevent panic as NY state and NYC are the U.S. epicenter of this emergency by calling in federal resources to address the apex of cases in his jurisdiction. What counter examples can you cite as a better response to this issue?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago> What counter examples can you cite as a better response to this issue? The ones I cited in the comment you replied to. China, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea. Like, I honestly can't think how Cuomo could do worse without actively trying to. He is observing the situation and doing all the obvious things any right-thinking person would, if they were totally unable to make any predictions, had no expert advisers, and were limited to reacting to only a point in time snapshot of reality. The only reason he doesn't look like the biggest disaster of governance in the history of the state is because both the guy above (Trump) and the guy below (De Blasio) are even more foolish. Anchoring effect at work, nothing more. Results matter. And the results are that this state already has nearly twice as many cases per capita as Italy, which is a widely acknowledged catastrophe. And we're way behind them on implementing lockdown.
- foobarbecue 7y agoPart of 3 Blue 1 Brown's excellent latest video simulates travel restrictions and suggests they're not very effective: https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs?t=777 https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs?t=777 . However, that was only for cutting travel between all communities by a factor of 4, rather than completely banning travel between two particular communities / countries.
- enchiridion 7y agoDo you mind giving a tldw on what effective measures look like?
- m3at 7y agoWatched it, no surprise regarding effective measures: - Good hygiene, especially after going to relatively crowded areas, ex. your local grocery - Reduce the frequency of commute to said areas - Social distancing The video is worth a watch though, I would recommend it if you can spare the 25min.
- Engineering-MD 7y agoIt was a great video and I agree with your conclusion. However it’s important to note he specifically states not to generalise his findings as he’s not an epidemiologist and human interactions are often much more complex. I personally don’t see how they would be effective in this instance, but they may have indirect/occult effects not obvious to those without the extra data The Japanese have.
- goldforever 7y agoThis is racist! LOL