Japan will step up its efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus by banning the entry of foreign citizens traveling from the United States, China, South Korea and most of Europe, the Asahi newspaper reported on Monday.
Non-Japanese citizens who have been in any of these areas in the past two weeks will be barred, the paper said. Tokyo may also ban travel to and from some countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, it said, citing unidentified government sources.
At present, Japan only bans entry of citizens from some parts of South Korea, China as well as numerous European nations, with a request for a two-week self-quarantine for those entering from the United States, China and South Korea.
While Japanese nationals would not be affected, the travel ban would come as a surge in the number of infections in Japan stokes fears that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may shift from considering to declaring a national state of emergency – a step that could pave the way for a lockdown of its capital Tokyo.
Prime Minister Abe has pledged to deploy a huge stimulus package with a size exceeding one compiled during the global financial crisis to combat the outbreak, which had infected nearly 1,900 people in Japan, with 56 deaths, as of Sunday afternoon.
Those numbers excludes 712 cases and 10 deaths from a cruise ship that was moored near Tokyo last month, public broadcaster NHK said.
