Coronavirus: border closure dents Japan’s ‘soft power’, ruins students’ lives
- Stressed-out foreign students waiting for change in Japan’s travel policy have gone elsewhere as universities and businesses count the economic cost
- Meanwhile, South Korea reported more than 13,000 new Covid-19 cases amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant
The absence of the foreign students and researchers is being felt from big laboratories to small, private universities, highlighting the importance of overseas talent – and their tuition fees – as Japan grapples with a shrinking population.
What is less clear is the longer-term hit on Japan’s “soft power” – in particular its academic reputation around the world.
At research institute Riken, geneticist Piero Carninci says he sees the impact first-hand. Japan has a shortage of bioinformatic researchers critical for genomic studies but he has not been able to fill the gap with foreign talent over the past two years.
“My lab, for sure, is slowing down and our centre for this type of analysis. We are struggling,” Carninci, a deputy director at Riken, whose prize-winning research in genetics has been cited in 60,000 papers.
“Internationalisation in science is definitely critical, because you don’t have all the expertise in the same country.”
Many countries sealed borders to keep the coronavirus at bay.
The US saw international student enrolment drop 43 per cent in the fall of 2020 from the previous year, while some 80,000 immigrant worker visas expired unused last year.
But Japan stands out with the strictest borders among Group of Seven countries, effectively banning all new non-residents since March 2020. Only China, with its zero Covid target, has been more closed off among major economies.
The stakes are high. A government-affiliated study showed Japan last year fell to 10th place globally in publication of noteworthy scientific papers, just behind India. Twenty years ago, it was number four.
Nearly half of Japan’s four-year private universities failed to fill all places for first-year students in 2021, up 15 percentage points from the previous year, according to an official at the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan, which represents private educators.
While the biggest reason was a drop-off in the number of Japanese students, the decline in foreign students was also felt, the official said.
More than 100 academics and international relations experts signed a letter asking Kishida to reopen borders last week. People shut out have protested outside Japanese embassies and an online petition calling for students and workers to be let in has more than 33,000 signatures.
The government said last week it would make an exception and allow 87 state-sponsored students in.
“It’s a giant own-goal for Japan after decades of masterful use of soft power,” said Wesley Cheek, a sociologist who recently left Japan for a research post in Britain.
“People like me, who’d usually be applying for grants to continue our research in Japan, just have to take a pass for the foreseeable future.”
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International students can work part-time in Japan and have traditionally provided a pool of what Japanese refer to as “odd-job” workers in places like convenience stores, in a country long wary of letting foreign workers in.
Even before the coronavirus, there were not enough foreign students to meet labour demand, said Yohei Shibasaki, an international hiring adviser to service and tech companies
He estimated there were about 170,000 students from trade and language schools in Japan before the pandemic, most of whom worked part-time.
Hiroshi Mikitani, chief executive of e-commerce group Rakuten, which hires foreign engineers, has said the curbs should be reconsidered as they were not practically effective and were “only a minus for the economy”.
The plight of international students, some dreaming for years of study, can be heart-wrenching.
On social media and in interviews, they described paying tuition for classes they took online in the middle of the night, losing scholarships, and months of stress waiting for change.
Some have exhausted savings. Some have given up and gone elsewhere.
Japan is no longer the main destination for study and research in East Asia, with more students now going to South Korea, said Davide Rossi, who runs an agency promoting study abroad.
Sujin Song, 20, a science major from South Korea, has lost her scholarship but tries to do lab work for her classes online. She was blocked again from entering Japan in November.
“I really liked Japan but now I feel betrayed,” Song said.
Cases in South Korea jump
The record 13,012 cases for the previous 24-hour period came just a day after the tally first topped 8,000 despite the extension of tough social distancing rules.
Omicron became the dominant variant in South Korea last week, and the daily numbers could more than double or surge to even higher levels in the coming weeks, health officials warned.
“Going forward, our top priority is to reduce critically ill patients and deaths,” Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum told an inter-ministry meeting on Wednesday.
The government introduced a new testing policy in four designated cities on a pilot basis, under which only priority groups take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test while others can get a rapid antigen test at a local clinic for faster initial diagnosis.
The programme will be scaled up starting on Saturday to enable 256 state-run testing stations nationwide to distribute the rapid antigen self-test kits, Kim said. Another 430 local clinics will be added next week.
As part of efforts to free up resources for serious patients, the government has also cut mandatory isolation for people who have been vaccinated but tested positive to seven days from 10, and expanded self-treatment at home for asymptomatic and mild cases.
Son Young-rae, a health ministry official, said more than 80 per cent of intensive care unit beds are available nationwide, compared with some 20 per cent in early December when record-breaking infections threatened to saturate the country’s medical system.
South Korea is currently carrying out 400,000-500,000 PCR tests a day, but has capacity for 800,000, Son added.
The Omicron surge has fuelled worries about a new wave of infections ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday which begins on Saturday, when tens of millions travel nationwide to meet families.
President Moon Jae-in also met with aides on Wednesday to oversee the government’s efforts, calling for moves to prevent any potential shortages of test kits and ensure sufficient consultations with doctors at local clinics.
On Tuesday, some 46 South Korean athletes and coaches who will compete in the Beijing Winter Olympics had to receive a Covid-19 test after attending a ceremony for the delegation where an official at the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee later tested positive.
South Korea has largely been successful in mitigating Covid, with 762,983 total infections and 6,620 deaths.
More than 95 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated with some 58 per cent having received a booster dose, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
New Zealand to cut isolation time
The government plans three phases, with the first now under way as policymakers take a “stamp it out” approach, Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said on Wednesday in Wellington. Phase two will occur when Omicron cases have spread in the community and phase three will be when there are thousands of cases a day.
“As case numbers grow both testing and isolation approaches will change in response,” Verrall told reporters. “We have planned for scenarios when there could be tens of thousands of cases a day.”
New Zealand has fended off a severe outbreak of Covid-19 by closing its border and as needed locking down communities, while at the same time allowing most of the population to get vaccinated. The more infectious omicron variant means the nation now has to adjust to living with the virus.
“Almost no country in the world has escaped Omicron and New Zealand is no exception,” Verrall said. “But where we can be an exception is how well we minimise the impact of the virus and protect our people from it.”
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In phase two, those with cases will need to isolate for 10 days rather than 14 currently, she said. Contacts will need to isolate for seven days, down from 10.
In phase three, the definition of contacts will tighten to household contacts only, so that only the high-risk persons will need to isolate.
The government will also make greater use of rapid antigen tests as case numbers build, focusing PCR tests on priority populations. Verrall also outlined greater use of digital technology including text messages to communicate with infected people and their close contacts.
Phase two will occur when Omicron cases have spread in the community and phase three will be when there are thousands of infections a day.
Thailand finds Omicron subvariant cases
While several countries are reporting increases in the Omicron subvariant, the main BA.1 variant still represents 98.8 per cent of the genetic sequences collected and submitted to the international GISAID database, the World Health Organization said in its weekly Covid report. The WHO said it’s continuing to monitor all subvariants of Omicron.
Australian state’s infections top 1 million
While citizenship ceremonies, celebrations and protest rallies all increased the risk of further infections, there were also some signs that the number of people being hospitalised and in intensive care may be plateauing. Hospital admissions in NSW, the country’s most populous state, dropped slightly to 2,794 and ICU numbers eased to 175 over the past 24 hours, according to government data.
In Queensland state, where the health system is also under strain due to the spread of the Omicron variant, officials expressed optimism that infections may peak soon in the southeast. State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told reporters that the peak already looked to have been reached at the Gold Coast.
Australia on Wednesday recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic so far with at least 87 deaths.
Reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg
