Japan to lift all Covid-19 border controls on April 29

TOKYO: Japan will end its Covid-19 border controls for all people arriving in the country on Saturday, with an influx of travellers expected during the Golden Week string of holidays, the government said Friday.

Currently, visitors to Japan are required to present certification proving they've had at least three vaccinations or evidence of a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours, Xinhua news agency reported.

But Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, told a news conference that these prerequisites to enter the country will no longer be required for people arriving from Saturday onwards.

Controversial, so-called randomized Covid tests, will also be scrapped, the government said.

Japan had initially aimed to fully lift its border protocols on May 8, the same day that the legal status of Covid will be downgraded to the same as that of seasonal influenza.

Matsuno said the decision to end the border requirements earlier was to cater to numerous travellers who will travel overseas during the Golden Week period starting this weekend.

As for the downgrading of Covid, when it comes into effect on May 8, the virus will no longer be in a special category equivalent to or stricter than Class 2 but will be categorised among Class 5 diseases like seasonal influenza.

If there is future spike in cases of Covid infections, under the lowered categorization, a state of emergency will not be declared.

"Special measures that the government has been taking in response to the novel coronavirus will end on May 7," Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Katsunobu Kato told a press conference on the matter a day earlier.

Kato also said that while efforts have been made toward the resumption of normal social and economic activities, COVID-19 had not disappeared and as such medical institutions, along with facilities for the elderly will be asked to take necessary measures.

Under the auspices of the health ministry's advisory panel, a group of experts warned earlier in April, however, that a ninth wave of infections could hit Japan.

Kato himself on Thursday highlighted an uptick in cases in Japan of a new subvariant of COVID-19.

People entering the country with symptoms including fever and coughing will still be tested for COVID-19, the government said.