Japan adds 14 more countries to entry ban list
TOKYO (AP) — Japan is adding 14 more countries – including Russia, Peru and Saudi Arabia – to the entry ban list as the country steps up border control as the coronavirus infections continued to spread in the country, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday.
Japan has already banned entry from more than 70 other countries, banning foreigners with records of visiting those countries in the past two weeks, while invalidating visas for the rest of the world.
The additional step on the 14 countries will take effect tomorrow, Abe said.
The entry ban and the visa restrictions, initially set to end on Thursday, are extended until the end of May.
Japan is now under a month-long state of emergency through May 6, for now. Officials and experts are gauging its effect and whether to extend the measure.
Japan has 13,385 confirmed cases, as well as 712 others from a cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo earlier this year, with 364 deaths, according to the health ministry.
Meanwhile, New Zealand reported five new coronavirus cases yesterday, as the nation got ready to ease the rules on a strict lockdown from midnight.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there has not been widespread community transmission of the virus, and the country has so far managed to avoid the worst scenarios for an outbreak.
Ardern added that it would continue to hunt down the last few cases.
From midnight, certain businesses, such as construction, will be allowed to reopen, but social distancing rules will still apply.
Ardern said the nation was opening up the economy, but not people’s social lives.
In South Korea, only 10 new cases of the coronavirus were reported yesterday, its 26th straight day below 100 as officials mulled reopening schools amid the slowing caseload.
The figures released by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brought the national totals to 10,738 cases and 243 deaths.