THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
November 27, 2021 at 13:40 JST
A quarantine officer at Narita Airport near Tokyo checks on an arriving passenger in May 2021. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Japan moved quickly to emulate steps by other nations against those arriving from six nations in southern Africa, where a much stronger variant of the novel coronavirus is stoking international alarm.
Effective midnight Nov. 26, passengers from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, will be required to self-quarantine for 10 days at accommodation facilities designated by the government.
Britain on Nov. 25 announced a ban on arriving foreign passengers from those six nations. Israel, Singapore and France followed suit.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at his Nov. 26 news conference that no case of the variant virus had yet been detected in Japan, including during airport quarantine checks.
He said the government was gathering information from other nations as well as the World Health Organization regarding the variant strain.
(Tatsuya Sato contributed to this article.)
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