Britain Reinstates PCR Test Rule; Japan Closes Borders Due to Omicron Fears
Here we go again.
Japan today (Monday) announced that it’s closing its border to international travellers due to fears of the omicron variant of COVID-19.
Japan will bar entry to foreigners from midnight on Monday, and Japanese returnees from specified nations will have to quarantine in designated facilities, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters.
ABC News reports that the Israel Health Ministry said the country’s coronavirus Cabinet had authorized a raft of measures, including red-listing travel to 50 African countries, banning entry by foreigners and mandating quarantine for all Israelis arriving from abroad.
Australia today said it’s delaying the reopening of its international border by two weeks (until December 15) after reporting its first cases of the omicron variant.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom has reintroduced the requirement for PCR tests for all incoming travellers, including those who are double vaccinated. There’s also a mandatory quarantine while arriving visitors wait for their test results, which must be taken on the day of arrival or the day after.
Canada and other countries have temporarily banned visitors from some countries in South Africa, where the omicron variant was discovered.
Ana Nicholls, industry operations director at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told The Independent that “Scientists still need to work out how transmissible it is, how bad the symptoms are, and whether vaccines are still effective. If the news proves to be bad, then the economic impact could be substantial.”
Nicholls said she doesn’t think the omicron variant will “materially delay” the forecast of a travel recovery by 2023 or early 2024, but that it will delay the pace of recovery in the next few months.
“The travel bans are not the only problem; even where travel is still permitted, there will still be stricter rules on testing, vaccine passports and quarantines, with even more confusion over how and when these are brought into effect in different countries,” she said. “Given how many travellers were already being deterred by the sheer paperwork involved in travelling, changing those rules again will put more people off. Further restrictions would have an even bigger impact.”
