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With 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 ide

With 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?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - donw 7y ago
    Because some of us foreigners live here.
  - servercobra 7y ago
    There's still some groups of people you'd want to let in. For example, someone married to or in a long term relationship with a national who is outside the country right now. Or even foreigners that live there but are nationals yet.
    - briandear 7y ago
      Does the virus care about those groups? Either close the border or don’t. A family member can carry the virus end just as easily as a tourist. If the reasons for closing it are to prevent the spread, then having a bunch or exceptions defeats the purpose.
      - cm2187 7y ago
        If it is small numbers, you can test for symptoms on arrival. The problem is leaving people in impossible situations abroad, overstaying their visa, not having the means to pay for accommodations (particularly if hotels close), etc.
        petre 7y ago
        You've got asymptomatic super spreades just like in the case of SARS. The impossible situations abroad could be solved through the embassy. My country is flying in citizens from abroad in military planes.
      - Retric 7y ago
        The virus is still quite rare in every country. Unchecked it has a growth factor of around 3 to 4 new infections per case but simply reducing the risk of infection by 80% is enough to eventually reduce the number of active infections as seen in South Korea and China. The question is mostly what vectors of infections to allow vs eliminate. And in that context banning travel from high risk areas is useful but not that important after community spreading has started. However, this changes based on how widespread the disease is inside each country. Thus, the delayed ban. PS: Japan is a very interesting case, with the number of new infections being fairly steady over the last 2 weeks.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  I missed that bit in the announcement. Thanks for calling it out!
- ojbyrne 7y ago
  The article is somewhat unclear but it says the new measures apply to foreign nationals. The part about Japanese nationals seems to refer to an earlier restriction (14 day self-quarantine).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- nl 7y ago
  This restriction ("The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States.") isn't the restriction on entry that the headline is about. This is an existing restriction which requires self-isolation: The government had already started moving from March 26 to restrict entry for those entering from anywhere in the United States. The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States. All new arrivals are required to self-quarantine themselves for two weeks at their homes or hotels and other accommodation under provisions laid down by the head of the local quarantine office. The new restriction applies to "all foreign nationals travelling on U.S. passports or who have been in the United States for the past two weeks."
bibabaloo 7y ago
> why not do it now? I'm guessing to give people time to alter their plans etc. > Unless they are magically different from every other country They seem to be! Nobody really knows why, but even if their testing is inadequate you'd still expect to be seeing a lot more deaths if the virus was rapidly spreading. More info: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/20/national/coronavirus-explosion-expected-japan/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/20/national/corona...
- kiba 7y ago
  That's a week old story. Now it seemed to be not the case.
2019-nCoV 7y ago
> Unless they are magically different from every other country Maybe being a conscientious nation-state, with a culture that prioritises the collective, cleanliness and mask usage, is close enough to magic.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  Maybe, but SK, Taiwan, and Singapore all are as well and it wasn't enough in any of those countries. Widespread testing, border closing, and, at least in the case of SK, some measure of lockdown were also required.
  - johntiger1 7y ago
    Not sure why this is downvoted; Japan isn't significantly different from any of the places you mentioned
- chrischen 7y ago
  I would say Japan is a bit cleaner than SK. Also a lot of the cult-religions seemed to have played a big part in spreading the disease.
billfruit 7y ago
Some time ought to be given to people have a chance to get "home" before they close entry. Some countries have closed borders rather abruptly that thousands were stuck in transit.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  It seems like you could close the border except to those returning home. It doesn't seem like a delay of implementation is required to accomplish repatriation.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Announcing a blockade with aircraft in flight could easily make things far worse. Travellers, and carriers, now have at least a couple of days to change plans.
Phylter 7y ago
Anything is better than nothing and as far as the time frame goes... I'm sure they have bureaucracy like anybody else. Sometimes it takes time to get things done.
lukasm 7y ago
>they should have done it yesterday. The visa waiver program was canceled a week ago, so in pratice there is a ban already. This doesnt change much.
mistermann 7y ago
I think there may be an important cultural difference in play here.
jbc1 7y ago
I got fucked by that indecisiveness. Couldn't get a visa extension in the country I was living in without my country of citizenship closing its borders. Country of citizenship shut down national airlines but let foreign ones keep flying in and out, banned tourists from flying out, banned foreigners from flying in, instituted a quarantine for people flying in. Absolutely everything they could think to do other than shut the damn border. And they have the gall to have "dont fly" up in a big red notice on all of their travel shit. I didn't want to! You forced me! Now instead of being at home getting meals dropped off at my closed door and being in complete isolation from the outside world the entire time; I've been in a series of public transports and crowded public locations, stuck in quarantine house sitting for a friend of a friend, with more temporary housing and transportation scheduled to take place in the coming weeks. I'll be more active and in more crowds during this pandemic than I was in the entire previous year. My previous lifestyle was basically "lockdown" anyway. But noooo they have to play games with the borders so some dingus that decided March 10 was a good time to take the wife and kids on vacation doesn't get a chance to kick up a stink in the media. Kicker is that the country I was living in issued emergency visas to everyone still there a couple days after I left anyway.
mxcrossb 7y ago
> If it's a good idea now, it's going to be twice as good of an idea in three days. If I had a crystal ball, six months ago we could’ve picked a good date. But that doesn’t mean I should have shut things down sixth months ago. We’re asking our governments to look ahead and make decisions.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  Shutting things down six months ago would have had no beneficial effect. Closing national borders globally in January would have had an extremely beneficial effect, in that domestic economies could have proceeded normally while China eradicated the infection. At the current point, there's really nothing to balance. Every extra day you're open is an extra several days you'll need to remain closed, and an extra 1.2-1.4x lives lost. Closing later is strictly worse than closing now.
idlewords 7y ago
They've been quarantining US arrivals for some time already.
kylebenzle 7y ago
You posted this late Saturday night (article is from Saturday afternoon), "next week" starts Sunday (they don't mean in 7 days), literally 1-2 hours away. What much faster do you want?
bamboozled 7y ago
I’m going to say it’s not effect immediately because it was severely impact people who are already in transit ? I also think that while the case rate is on the up there, people were being much more careful then in other countries and everyone was wearing masks. I think the mask and hand sanitiser thing helps. Japan seems to be making a rather large number of masks domestically (tens of millions) and has secured 600 million already, so it’s a luxury they can afford it seems. Here is the source: https://www.meti.go.jp/english/covid-19/mask.html https://www.meti.go.jp/english/covid-19/mask.html Edit: I’m going to go out on a limb and say, it seems very probable that wearing a mask is helping stop the spread of the disease pretty dramatically. We will find out in later studies I guess
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

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?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- donw 7y ago
  Because some of us foreigners live here.
- servercobra 7y ago
  There's still some groups of people you'd want to let in. For example, someone married to or in a long term relationship with a national who is outside the country right now. Or even foreigners that live there but are nationals yet.
  - briandear 7y ago
    Does the virus care about those groups? Either close the border or don’t. A family member can carry the virus end just as easily as a tourist. If the reasons for closing it are to prevent the spread, then having a bunch or exceptions defeats the purpose.
    - cm2187 7y ago
      If it is small numbers, you can test for symptoms on arrival. The problem is leaving people in impossible situations abroad, overstaying their visa, not having the means to pay for accommodations (particularly if hotels close), etc.
      - petre 7y ago
        You've got asymptomatic super spreades just like in the case of SARS. The impossible situations abroad could be solved through the embassy. My country is flying in citizens from abroad in military planes.
    - Retric 7y ago
      The virus is still quite rare in every country. Unchecked it has a growth factor of around 3 to 4 new infections per case but simply reducing the risk of infection by 80% is enough to eventually reduce the number of active infections as seen in South Korea and China. The question is mostly what vectors of infections to allow vs eliminate. And in that context banning travel from high risk areas is useful but not that important after community spreading has started. However, this changes based on how widespread the disease is inside each country. Thus, the delayed ban. PS: Japan is a very interesting case, with the number of new infections being fairly steady over the last 2 weeks.
asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
I missed that bit in the announcement. Thanks for calling it out!
ojbyrne 7y ago
The article is somewhat unclear but it says the new measures apply to foreign nationals. The part about Japanese nationals seems to refer to an earlier restriction (14 day self-quarantine).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
nl 7y ago
This restriction ("The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States.") isn't the restriction on entry that the headline is about. This is an existing restriction which requires self-isolation: The government had already started moving from March 26 to restrict entry for those entering from anywhere in the United States. The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States. All new arrivals are required to self-quarantine themselves for two weeks at their homes or hotels and other accommodation under provisions laid down by the head of the local quarantine office. The new restriction applies to "all foreign nationals travelling on U.S. passports or who have been in the United States for the past two weeks."

bibabaloo 7y ago

> why not do it now? I'm guessing to give people time to alter their plans etc. > Unless they are magically different from every other country They seem to be! Nobody really knows why, but even if their testing is inadequate you'd still expect to be seeing a lot more deaths if the virus was rapidly spreading. More info: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/20/national/coronavirus-explosion-expected-japan/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/20/national/corona...

kiba 7y ago
That's a week old story. Now it seemed to be not the case.

2019-nCoV 7y ago

> Unless they are magically different from every other country Maybe being a conscientious nation-state, with a culture that prioritises the collective, cleanliness and mask usage, is close enough to magic.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
Maybe, but SK, Taiwan, and Singapore all are as well and it wasn't enough in any of those countries. Widespread testing, border closing, and, at least in the case of SK, some measure of lockdown were also required.
- johntiger1 7y ago
  Not sure why this is downvoted; Japan isn't significantly different from any of the places you mentioned
chrischen 7y ago
I would say Japan is a bit cleaner than SK. Also a lot of the cult-religions seemed to have played a big part in spreading the disease.

billfruit 7y ago

Some time ought to be given to people have a chance to get "home" before they close entry. Some countries have closed borders rather abruptly that thousands were stuck in transit.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
It seems like you could close the border except to those returning home. It doesn't seem like a delay of implementation is required to accomplish repatriation.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Announcing a blockade with aircraft in flight could easily make things far worse. Travellers, and carriers, now have at least a couple of days to change plans.

Phylter 7y ago

Anything is better than nothing and as far as the time frame goes... I'm sure they have bureaucracy like anybody else. Sometimes it takes time to get things done.

lukasm 7y ago

>they should have done it yesterday. The visa waiver program was canceled a week ago, so in pratice there is a ban already. This doesnt change much.

mistermann 7y ago

I think there may be an important cultural difference in play here.

jbc1 7y ago

I got fucked by that indecisiveness. Couldn't get a visa extension in the country I was living in without my country of citizenship closing its borders. Country of citizenship shut down national airlines but let foreign ones keep flying in and out, banned tourists from flying out, banned foreigners from flying in, instituted a quarantine for people flying in. Absolutely everything they could think to do other than shut the damn border. And they have the gall to have "dont fly" up in a big red notice on all of their travel shit. I didn't want to! You forced me! Now instead of being at home getting meals dropped off at my closed door and being in complete isolation from the outside world the entire time; I've been in a series of public transports and crowded public locations, stuck in quarantine house sitting for a friend of a friend, with more temporary housing and transportation scheduled to take place in the coming weeks. I'll be more active and in more crowds during this pandemic than I was in the entire previous year. My previous lifestyle was basically "lockdown" anyway. But noooo they have to play games with the borders so some dingus that decided March 10 was a good time to take the wife and kids on vacation doesn't get a chance to kick up a stink in the media. Kicker is that the country I was living in issued emergency visas to everyone still there a couple days after I left anyway.

mxcrossb 7y ago

> If it's a good idea now, it's going to be twice as good of an idea in three days. If I had a crystal ball, six months ago we could’ve picked a good date. But that doesn’t mean I should have shut things down sixth months ago. We’re asking our governments to look ahead and make decisions.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
Shutting things down six months ago would have had no beneficial effect. Closing national borders globally in January would have had an extremely beneficial effect, in that domestic economies could have proceeded normally while China eradicated the infection. At the current point, there's really nothing to balance. Every extra day you're open is an extra several days you'll need to remain closed, and an extra 1.2-1.4x lives lost. Closing later is strictly worse than closing now.

idlewords 7y ago

They've been quarantining US arrivals for some time already.

kylebenzle 7y ago

You posted this late Saturday night (article is from Saturday afternoon), "next week" starts Sunday (they don't mean in 7 days), literally 1-2 hours away. What much faster do you want?

bamboozled 7y ago

I’m going to say it’s not effect immediately because it was severely impact people who are already in transit ? I also think that while the case rate is on the up there, people were being much more careful then in other countries and everyone was wearing masks. I think the mask and hand sanitiser thing helps. Japan seems to be making a rather large number of masks domestically (tens of millions) and has secured 600 million already, so it’s a luxury they can afford it seems. Here is the source: https://www.meti.go.jp/english/covid-19/mask.html https://www.meti.go.jp/english/covid-19/mask.html Edit: I’m going to go out on a limb and say, it seems very probable that wearing a mask is helping stop the spread of the disease pretty dramatically. We will find out in later studies I guess

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]