Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Monday that his country will require a 14-day quarantine to all visitors from the United States amid an escalating number of coronavirus infections around the globe.
The quarantine requirement includes Japanese and American citizens and will go into effect Thursday until the end of April. The move comes after Japan raised its travel advisory for the United States, urging Japanese citizens not to make nonessential trips to the nation.
Abe’s announcement came during a meeting of his government task force on the COVID-19 outbreak, citing the number of infections around the world.
Abe said the new requirement is in line with containment measures taken by other countries, including the United States, which has reported a surge in new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks.
Japan appears to have successfully slowed the spread of the virus on its soil, with just 1,101 diagnosed cases as of Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering.