To facilitate the resumption of overseas business travel, the government intends to establish a PCR testing system in which about 3,000 Japanese businesspeople can be checked daily for the novel coronavirus before their departure.
According to an outline, government bodies such as the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry are making arrangements to establish centers for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. Private entities are expected to conduct the tests.
Centers are scheduled to be set up as early as September in five locations: near Haneda, Narita and Kansai airports and in central Tokyo and Osaka. Daily testing capacity is expected to be 500 people at Haneda, 700 at Narita, 600 at Kansai, 800 in central Tokyo and 400 in central Osaka, bringing the total number to 3,000.
Travelers seeking to make trips are highly likely to be required by their destination country to submit in advance a certificate that they tested negative for the coronavirus.
The government therefore envisages introducing a system in which travelers can swiftly receive such certificates after a sample is collected and a PCR test shows them to be negative.The tests are not expected to be covered by health insurance programs, so the entire cost is likely to be borne by the recipient.
Until the PCR centers are set up, the government plans to ask private clinics and other medical institutions that specialize in treating people traveling abroad to conduct pre-departure checks individually. However, this approach can apparently only handle a few hundred people a day nationwide, which was what prompted calls to set up PCR centers that can handle a large number of air travelers.
The number of foreign visitors to Japan is also expected to increase as people resume traveling. The government plans to enable the PCR centers at the three airports to test 6,000 people entering the nation per day.
It also intends to enhance the daily inspection capacity of the airports' existing quarantine stations from the current 2,300 people to about 4,000 people. This would bring the combined capacity to about 10,000.
The government is discussing various matters related to resuming business travel with Vietnam, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, including the number of travelers to be allowed and infection-control measures. In the second stage, Japan plans to add 10 countries and regions to the list of permitted visitors, including China, Taiwan and South Korea.
The government will hold a meeting of its task force led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to make decisions about expanding the testing system and increasing the number of countries and regions whose citizens are allowed to visit.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
