Japan is eyeing off a small batch of countries to reopen its borders to, and hell yeah: Australia is on the list. However, don’t start exchanging your dollars for yen just yet.
As much as we’d all like to set away on a holiday flight to Japan, the decision is totally up to the powers that be. According to Nikkei Asian Review, the travel ban in Japan is set to lift as early as next month, which is real fkn soon.
Japan currently has travel bans in operation for 159 countries at the moment, and is reportedly going to adjust how they see a few countries, including Australia and New Zealand, which is big news.
These countries and regions (there are 10 in total) are those who have been keeping low in COVID-19 numbers, and of course, the two-week quarantine we all know and love will still be in place.
As soon as October kicks into gear, Australia will be seen by the Japanese government as a country with a ‘level 2’ warning. So, not exactly completely safe, but still wayyyy safer than a ‘level 3’. ‘Level 2’ is essentially a warning that if the travel is nonessential, you should think twice about doing it, meanwhile ‘level 3’ is a big old stay the fuck away.
Japan will also move into a negotiations phase with 16 countries, including China and Taiwan to talk about kicking off business travel.
On top of this, Japan will be allowing foreigners to stay within the country for more than three months, as long as they have permission and are from a country deemed ‘level 2’ or lower. If other countries allow, they will also allow people to travel from Japan, but that is entirely up to us.
According to Nikkei Asian Review, “the receiving country has the power to accept or reject their entry,” which means that the Australian government now has to agree to the idea, and similarly open up borders to Queensland.
Considering we don’t quite have things fully sorted in Victoria just yet, we might be thinking twice about this.
Is this a sign of things returning to normal? We can only hope.
