Here are the latest COVID-19 updates from Japan and beyond:
<Sept. 11, 2022>
- 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.
<Sept. 9, 2022>
- Japan's cumulative total of coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic topped 20 million on Friday, official data showed, doubling in less than two months as the country battles its seventh wave of infections.
<Sept. 7, 2022>
- India's drug regulator has approved what a local vaccine innovator calls the "world's first" intranasal COVID-19 vaccine, restricted for use in emergency situations for those aged 18 years and above.
- Japan's relaxed border measures from Wednesday, including raising a daily cap on arrivals from 20,000 to 50,000, will not translate into a surge of tourists to gun its economy unless they are given greater freedom to travel in the country, industry officials say.
- Japan increased its daily entry cap on arrivals from 20,000 to 50,000 on Wednesday, as the country's tourism sector has been languishing in the face of strict COVID-19 border controls imposed for more than two years.
<Sept. 6, 2022>
- Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday that Japan will shorten the period of isolation for COVID-19 patients to seven days from the current 10 days.
- Household spending increased a real 3.4 percent in July from a year earlier, helped by the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions that prompted a rise in recreational and dining expenditure, government data showed Tuesday, in a fresh sign of a gradual return to normalcy.
<Sept. 2, 2022>
- The Japanese government decided Friday to introduce penalties for major hospitals that fail to provide outpatient care and prepare beds for patients with COVID-19 and other infectious diseases against prearrangements with local governments.
<Sept. 1, 2022>
- The government held an annual disaster drill Thursday, though again scaling it back to prevent the spread of COVID-19, based on the scenario that a massive earthquake originating off Japan's Pacific coast had affected wide areas.
- Pretax profits among nonfinancial Japanese companies jumped 17.6 percent from a year earlier to a record 28.32 trillion yen ($203 billion) in the April-June quarter, government data showed Thursday, boosted by a weak yen and the waning impact of the COVID-19 pandemic despite surging commodity prices.
<Aug. 31, 2022>
- U.S. drug regulators on Wednesday approved two updated formulations of COVID-19 vaccines as booster shots intended to provide increased protection against the currently circulating Omicron variant.
- Japan will raise its daily entry cap on arrivals to 50,000 from the current 20,000 from Sept. 7 in a further easing of strict COVID-19 border controls, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Wednesday.
Japan and beyond: Week in Photos - Sept. 3~9
Useful resources for foreign residents and visitors in Japan
- Health ministry call center
COVID-19: 0120-565-653 (toll free)
COVID-19 Vaccines: 0120-761-770 (toll free)
-Interpreters available for English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; for Thai 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; for Vietnamese 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. - Health ministry's COVID-19 Vaccine Navigation website
https://v-sys.mhlw.go.jp/en/ - AMDA Medical Information Center's "Multilingual Consultation Service"
- Available in Simple Japanese and English, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. Also available in Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese on designated weekdays. Check schedule here.
03-6233-9266 - Tokyo Metropolitan Government's COVID-19 info
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ - Tokyo Metropolitan Government hotline
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/contacts
- Available in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. (including weekends and holidays)
0570-550571
- Available via fax for those with hearing impairments
03-5388-1396 - Japan National Tourism Organization's "Guide for when you are feeling ill"
- Multilingual clinic/hospital search available in English, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese
https://www.jnto.go.jp/emergency/eng/mi_guide.html - JNTO's "Japan Visitor Hotline"
https://www.japan.travel/en/plan/hotline/
- Available in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese 24 hours a day
050-3816-2787
+81-50-3816-2787 (from overseas)