Japan has announced on Monday that they will be closing their borders and suspending entry of foreign visitors due to the threat of the new coronavirus variant Omicron. Although it’s still yet to be determined by scientists if it’s a bigger threat than Delta, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called the move an “emergency precaution to prevent a worst-case scenario” in the country.
Japan just recently eased their restrictions for foreign students and workers, but will now be going back to more strict travel guidelines once again.
While the WHO warned that fully understanding the new variant’s level of severity could take weeks, they still deemed that “the overall global risk related to the new variant of concern Omicron is assessed as very high.