I’m happy to report some good news for once.
Japan is reviewing its border control policy of keeping daily entries below 50,000 and will remove it in the "not so distant future," a government spokesman said Sunday.
The government will simultaneously relax other restrictions including a visa requirement and the requirement to travel on a package tour when it completely lifts the daily cap on overseas arrivals, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said in a Fuji Television program.
Hooray! These changes are set to happen in October, so four months after Japan declared itself open to tourists, Japan will actually be open to tourists.
With these changes, Japan is finally moving to where Europe was in 2021. With any luck, Japan will move to where Europe is now sometime next year by getting rid of the PCR test requirement for arrivals who haven’t had 3 or more injections of approved gene juice (Chinese and Russia jabs don’t count).
But wait. There’s more.
Yes, after recording over 20 million infections, Japan is finally going to discontinue COCOA. Goodbye and good riddance to the useless, costly, privacy-invading piece of shit.
And there’s more good news.
Basically, local governments check whether bars and restaurants are following so-called infection-prevention measures. Those that are get a niffty little sticker like the one below to show they are “certified”. To be clear, there is no formal penalty for not being certified, but owners risk Covidian customers shunning their establishments.
To be “certified” from now on, eateries will:
• 1) not need to put partitions in front of the register, but staff still need to sanitise their hands after handling cash;
• 2) not need to have customers use gloves when taking from a buffet, but hand sanitiser is still required though;
• 3) not need to sanitise condiment containers on tables each time customers leave. Sanitising at appropriate times will be enough;
• 4) not need to ask customers to put the toilet lid down before flushing.
The last one isn’t a joke.
So Japan is taking concrete steps to tone down the Covidiocy, which may mean I’ll have less to write about. At least I’ll still be able to moan about masks, jabs, and suicides for the foreseeable future though. I’ll let you decide whether to be thankful for that.
Update 23 Sep
PM Kishida’s has confirmed the border controls will be relaxed from 11 October.
But Japan can’t take a step forward in one area without taking a step back in other. The world has been loosening and removing mask rules, so of course Japan must tighten its.
They have no choice but to ease those restrictions if they let foreigners (viruses carriers as you like to call them^^) in the country without restrictions.
Great. No gloves at the buffet but must use hand sanitizer. How many are going top get sickened due to hand sanitizer dropping into food at the buffet? Does anyone think through any of this?
For those that missed my update on my comments on the panel discussion where the difficulty of nursing students to say “no” to any of this, I was on campus of my remaining nursing and medical school yesterday. My first time there in in over 2 years. Masks required. I honored this rule, as I am want to do. The cafeteria had different times designated for the nursing and medical students. Staff and factuality can use it any time other than these designated times. Many students were finishing their lunch when I entered at the begging of the afternoon time of availability for non students. Each table designed to accommodate four was divided into 4 individual spaces by thick, wooden partitions with one space on each side with a sign saying that it is not to be used due to social distancing. If viewed from above, the seating pattern would look like a checker board, even though they have partitioned the table. Mokushoku, eating in silence, is the rule. While these were not universally followed, most did comply. Most masked between bites and sips. These are the future doctors and nurses of Japan. This does not end with relaxing restrictions. Everyone form nursery school kids to medical doctors are being taught and trained to keep this madness going, at least to some degree. Take a look at how many are still wearing masks outside in the heat despite being “recommended” not too.