Japan to relax strict border controls, shorten quarantine period

Dhaka: Japan is going to ease border controls put in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Among the measures, the country will be raising the number of people allowed to enter Japan to 5,000 a day from the current 3,500, according to reports.

Other measures are likely to include shortening the required quarantine period, currently a week, to three days under certain circumstances, such as the coronavirus risk level in the nation people travel from and whether they are fully vaccinated, including a booster shot.

Reports claimed the new measures would take effect in stages from March.

Till now, Japan designates 82 nations as "high risk" and requires three or six days of mandatory hotel quarantine as part of the week of isolation for many. Two weeks of quarantine were required until mid-January.

Japan briefly relaxed its border rules, which have effectively kept the nation closed to non-residents for two years, late in 2021 but tightened them again just weeks later as the Omicron variant emerged overseas.