By KAI ICHINO/ Staff Writer
July 15, 2022 at 17:51 JST
The health ministry building in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Hotels and other accommodations facilities could refuse to accept guests they suspect of having contracted such infectious diseases as COVID-19 under a proposed measure by a government expert panel.
The panel, advising the health ministry on measures to tackle the novel coronavirus, compiled a report on July 14 with a proposal to revise the Hotel Business Law.
The health ministry will accept the proposal and submit a bill to the Diet to revise the law by the end of this year at the earliest.
Under the current law, operators of accommodations such as hotels can refuse guests when they are confirmed to have contracted an infectious disease, but not when they are suspected of having such illnesses.
However, accommodation operators have called for a change to let them refuse to book such possible patients.
The proposal says that if people suspected of having contracted infectious diseases want to stay in an accommodation, the accommodation operator should contact a local public health center.
An accommodation operator also should ask these people to see a doctor if necessary.
If they don’t comply without a justifiable reason, the operator can refuse their stay, the proposal says.
Under the proposal, the rule will apply to infectious diseases in categories 1 or 2 under the Prevention of Infectious Diseases Law such as Ebola hemorrhagic fever or tuberculosis as well as COVID-19.
Accommodation operators can also refuse to accept nuisance guests, those who cause an excessive burden on them, the panel proposed.
The health ministry will publish a guideline for accommodation operators showing examples of cases the new rule applies to.
The guideline will seek to avoid arbitrary application by accommodation operators that could occur when they are allowed to decide whether to refuse guests who have symptoms such as a fever but haven’t seen a doctor.
In a controversial incident in 2003, a hotel in Kumamoto Prefecture refused to allow former Hansen’s disease patients to stay there.
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