By Miho Inada
TOKYO--Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday that travelers entering Japan from China will be required to take a Covid-19 test and those testing positive will be quarantined for seven days.
Mr. Kishida said it is an emergency move in response to the explosion of Covid-19 infections in China. The action, which takes effect Friday, means Chinese travelers will face tighter restrictions than visitors from many other countries who need only proof of vaccination to enter Japan.
Mr. Kishida implicitly criticized the way China is releasing information about its Covid-19 outbreak. "Unease in Japan is rising because it is difficult to get a detailed grasp of the situation in China, with information about infections greatly differing between the central government and regional governments as well as between governmental and private sources," he said.
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said samples of positive cases will be sequenced. "The biggest issue now is that it's hard for us to obtain detailed information on China," said Hiroyuki Noda, a Health Ministry official. "We'd like to make sure whether new variants have emerged or not in China."
Japan said it will limit flights from China, Hong Kong and Macau to four Japanese airports to handle large-scale testing at each airport. The four include Narita and Haneda airports, which serve the Tokyo area. It also said it will suspend plans to increase flights between Japan and China.
At present, visitors from China, like travelers from other countries, can enter Japan by showing proof they have received three vaccination shots or by showing a negative test result. The shots must be from drug makers recognized by the World Health Organization, a list that includes China's Sinovac and Sinopharm.
Write to Miho Inada at miho.inada@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-27-22 0345ET
