Japan in the wake of Corona Virus?

The unknown of COVID-19 is the most worrisome thing right now. Last I heard there have been three deaths attributed to the virus outside of China. Comparatively there are tens of thousands of deaths each year from influenza A/B in the US alone, some years the rates being within a few tenths of a percent of being considered a pandemic. Since influenza deaths hold steady year to year it doesn’t get the attention of the “what if?” associated with COVID-19. Hopefully the medical science experts will get it figured out soon!
14 outside of China. Running list: https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/
 
Sanrio Puroland has closed until March 13. To be fair, it is indoors and in Tokyo, and Tokyo has canceled all indoor events at this time. However, I'm sure OLC is sweating.

https://en.puroland.jp/
I appreciate the perspective on that closure. I had seen it, but forgotten that park was all indoors, and I didn't realize all indoor events were cancelled. So, thanks!
 


This whole situation is stressing me out. My husband is living and working in Okinawa right now. He is scheduled to be in S Korea for two weeks in early March (work). He has a flight booked for late March to come home and visit us. I'm worried the US will force quarantine people who were recently in S Korea or Japan (his flight home connects through Tokyo). On a similar note, I definitely don't want him coming home if he has been exposed to this virus. But we haven't seen him since Christmas and his time away has been quite hard on all of us. Ugh. Stupid virus!

There has only been one case in Okinawa so far and it's likely not near where your husband lives/works. Korea looks like the bigger risk right now. The US doesn't even require mandatory quarantine for some parts of China so it's highly unlikely they will implement a quarantine for Korea or Japan. I personally wouldn't assume he has been exposed to the virus unless he was on transportation that involved a confirmed case or met with someone who later developed symptoms.
 
There has only been one case in Okinawa so far and it's likely not near where your husband lives/works. Korea looks like the bigger risk right now. The US doesn't even require mandatory quarantine for some parts of China so it's highly unlikely they will implement a quarantine for Korea or Japan. I personally wouldn't assume he has been exposed to the virus unless he was on transportation that involved a confirmed case or met with someone who later developed symptoms.

It's going to get to Okinawa soon. There are SO many daily flights into Okinawa from all over Asia. No restrictions at this time, which is kind of surprising given that Okinawa is a tiny island with limited resources.

My concern comes from the extensive travel he has to do. He has already been to Thailand, just gut back from Taiwan last week (where they were implementing some CRAZY measures to prevent virus spread), has to visit S Korea as mentioned, followed by the Phillipines in April. He is also going back to Tokyo twice between now and May.
 
It's going to get to Okinawa soon. There are SO many daily flights into Okinawa from all over Asia. No restrictions at this time, which is kind of surprising given that Okinawa is a tiny island with limited resources.

My concern comes from the extensive travel he has to do. He has already been to Thailand, just gut back from Taiwan last week (where they were implementing some CRAZY measures to prevent virus spread), has to visit S Korea as mentioned, followed by the Phillipines in April. He is also going back to Tokyo twice between now and May.

Due to politics, Taiwan is not able to get any help from the WHO so I understand why they're taking things more seriously. Taiwan was allowed to have two people sit in on a WHO meeting once likely due to support from the US but I suspect that China threatened to not cooperate with the WHO if they recognized Taiwan.

Seeing images of Diamond Princess passengers go through the normal security checkpoint at Haneda has not made me feel good about that airport but hopefully your husband is flying Narita?
 


Some updates:
-The government "erroneously" let 23 people off the Diamond Princess who hadn't been tested since prior to the start of the quarantine period.
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200222-00000089-mai-soci
-The Ministry of Health did not test their staff working on the Diamond Princess and let them go straight back to work is because is if they tested them and found too many tested positive, there would be no way to get all the work done.
http://blog.livedoor.jp/dqnplus/archives/1998214.html
Also the number of new cases per day has about doubled since a few days ago (was 6-10 new cases per day for a while, now it's up to 24 new cases). Up to 133 total, the second highest of any country outside of China (South Korea is now the highest outside of China).

Not looking great.
 
!!! CDC has now posted a Level 2 alert for Japan (and South Korea). !!!

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/japan
"Because older adults and those with chronic medical conditions may be at higher risk for severe disease, people in these groups should discuss travel with a healthcare provider and consider postponing nonessential travel."

HK is still at Level 1 and China is still at Level 3.
 
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Due to politics, Taiwan is not able to get any help from the WHO so I understand why they're taking things more seriously. Taiwan was allowed to have two people sit in on a WHO meeting once likely due to support from the US but I suspect that China threatened to not cooperate with the WHO if they recognized Taiwan.

Seeing images of Diamond Princess passengers go through the normal security checkpoint at Haneda has not made me feel good about that airport but hopefully your husband is flying Narita?

Nope, he is connecting through Haneda. Haneda is becoming the leading airport in Tokyo these days. Lots of airlines are pulling out of Narita.
 
We have decided to postpone our trip to Japan to later this year, hopefully in the Fall. We have 2 young kids and after the CDC raised it to a Level 2 alert, we didn't want to risk it. It's also become more stressful than it's worth and I would rather go on a more relaxed vacation. So, we're going to Hawaii instead for spring break. If anything happens, at least we'll be in our home country.
 
I think anyone contemplating unnecessary travel to this part of the world in the near future is nuts. YMMV
 
If anyone successfully cancels a nonrefundable Hilton Tokyo Bay reservation, let me know. I'm going to wait to try until either 1. the CDC issues a level 3 alert or 2. it's a couple weeks before my scheduled trip, whatever comes first. Going to do the same for my JAL airfare, but at least with that I'm only out $300 if they don't want to fully refund me.
 
I think anyone contemplating unnecessary travel to this part of the world in the near future is nuts. YMMV
I may be nuts, but out trip isn't until June so I'm not cancelling anything yet. We originally were ticketed for April, but it's hard to ever work trips around my HS DD's schedule these days, so I already had to move it to June. Because we booked back in July, June was the latest option available to me to book without losing my airfare $. I'm not sure it's going to be possible even with COVID-19 to push the flight back further. And after all this planning and studying, I still want to go. I'm just wishing (upon a star) that this stops spreading soon b/c I'm not sure I'll have any good alternatives. This is starting to remind me of the time a friend and I got all hyped up about traveling to Europe and made a lot of plans, then she died right before the trip. Which was much worse, of course. I'm not saying these two situations are the same (other than people unfortunately dying.) It's just I'm getting that feeling of planning and planning and starting to feel like all the planning was a complete waste, because life doesn't always like to stick to the plan.
 
I may be nuts, but out trip isn't until June so I'm not cancelling anything yet. We originally were ticketed for April, but it's hard to ever work trips around my HS DD's schedule these days, so I already had to move it to June. Because we booked back in July, June was the latest option available to me to book without losing my airfare $. I'm not sure it's going to be possible even with COVID-19 to push the flight back further. And after all this planning and studying, I still want to go. I'm just wishing (upon a star) that this stops spreading soon b/c I'm not sure I'll have any good alternatives. This is starting to remind me of the time a friend and I got all hyped up about traveling to Europe and made a lot of plans, then she died right before the trip. Which was much worse, of course. I'm not saying these two situations are the same (other than people unfortunately dying.) It's just I'm getting that feeling of planning and planning and starting to feel like all the planning was a complete waste, because life doesn't always like to stick to the plan.
I hope it stops spreading and gets taken care of so you can go on your trip in June. I know how it feels to do all of that planning and feel like it went to waste.
 
I may be nuts, but out trip isn't until June so I'm not cancelling anything yet. We originally were ticketed for April, but it's hard to ever work trips around my HS DD's schedule these days, so I already had to move it to June. Because we booked back in July, June was the latest option available to me to book without losing my airfare $. I'm not sure it's going to be possible even with COVID-19 to push the flight back further. And after all this planning and studying, I still want to go. I'm just wishing (upon a star) that this stops spreading soon b/c I'm not sure I'll have any good alternatives. This is starting to remind me of the time a friend and I got all hyped up about traveling to Europe and made a lot of plans, then she died right before the trip. Which was much worse, of course. I'm not saying these two situations are the same (other than people unfortunately dying.) It's just I'm getting that feeling of planning and planning and starting to feel like all the planning was a complete waste, because life doesn't always like to stick to the plan.
Yes, I would not cancel if your trip if it is that far out. The uncertainty certainly stinks though.

More news:
Ghibli Museum will be closed from 2/25-3/17.
http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en/notice/013228/
 
We are getting close to abandoning our travel plans for May. The swiftness with which the CDC upgraded Japan to level 2 alarmed us.

Thankfully, we have only purchased airfare so far, and it appears that United is allowing for waiver of change fees and issuing either credits or full refunds for flights that had been booked to China, based on the CDCs level 3 status there, so my hope is that they will do the same for Japan flights if the level increases to 3.

We hadn't booked any hotels or anything else yet, but were not intending to book prepaid rates (I NEVER do that for hotels, no matter what..it's a total trap).
 
Well this isn't boding well.... So I was supposed to check all 3 Asia castles off my bucket list starting the first week in March, but they cancelled my tour in China and the airlines cancelled my flight to China and HK so I decided to rebook just Tokyo the first 2 weeks of May. Now it seems like this thing is following my plans. I wonder if the airline will change my flights again if the level goes up to 3? I really don't want to change the dates again and I'm definitely not cancelling. I've been planning this trip for over a year now.
 
Well this isn't boding well.... So I was supposed to check all 3 Asia castles off my bucket list starting the first week in March, but they cancelled my tour in China and the airlines cancelled my flight to China and HK so I decided to rebook just Tokyo the first 2 weeks of May. Now it seems like this thing is following my plans. I wonder if the airline will change my flights again if the level goes up to 3? I really don't want to change the dates again and I'm definitely not cancelling. I've been planning this trip for over a year now.
If there's a severe epidemic in May still (Level 3 on the CDC's alerts), you absolutely should cancel.

And yes, they likely will cancel your flight if it goes to Level 3 anyway.
 
If there's a severe epidemic in May still (Level 3 on the CDC's alerts), you absolutely should cancel.

And yes, they likely will cancel your flight if it goes to Level 3 anyway.
I will just reschedule it again if I have to and the airline lets me, but I really just want this stress to go away. Like I'm sure many people do.
 

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