THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 22, 2020 at 16:30 JST
A police officer walks across an empty 7th Avenue in a sparsely populated Times Square due to COVID-19 concerns on March 20 in New York. (AP Photo)
Japan has issued a travel warning for its nationals, urging not to make nonessential trips to the United States because of the rapidly expanding coronavirus outbreak in that country, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Japan has taken similar steps to most European countries and banned trips to China, South Korea as well as Iceland, San Marino and parts of Italy, Switzerland and Spain.
As of Saturday, the United States had 15,219 confirmed cases and 201 deaths, the ministry said, citing the U.S. Center for Disease Control.
The Foreign Ministry also said the decision came after the United States raised travel caution to Japan and four countries to level three, urging Americans not to make nonessential trips to Japan and requiring a 14-day self-imposed quarantine for Japanese nationals entering the United States.
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