Japan to fully lift COVID-19 restrictions as infections slow

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday announced plans to fully lift coronavirus restrictions on March 21 as new infections driven by the highly contagious omicron variant slow.

The COVID-19 restrictions currently in place in 18 prefectures, including the Tokyo area, will end on Monday as planned, Kishida said at a news conference on Wednesday, as his government seeks to cautiously expand consumer activity to help the badly hurt economy get back on track.

“This will be a transitional period so that we can return to our normal daily lives as much as possible by taking maximum precautions,” Kishida said.

It will be the first time Japan has been free of virus restrictions since early January. The plan will be formally adopted after an experts’ panel endorses it on Thursday.

Daily caseloads have steadily declined in Japan in recent weeks after surging to new highs exceeding 100,000 in early February. New cases have fallen by about half.

The lifting of restrictions will allow more domestic travel, as well as parties and larger gatherings for people with vaccination records and negative virus tests, Kishida said.

But Japan is not opening its border to foreign tourists yet.

Kishida on Wednesday did not mention further easing of Japan’s border controls. His government has eased border restrictions by increasing the limit on daily new arrivals to 7,000 in order to allow in foreign scholars, students, business people and interns after criticisms from inside and outside Japan that locking them out is exclusionist and unscientific.

While omicron causes mild symptoms in most people and the fatality rate remains low, the latest wave is the deadliest one so far in Japan because the total number of patients were many times higher than in earlier waves. Still,...