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Sudsy said:
Given that they just dropped the quarantine to 10 days for vaccinated residents/new visa holders, they've started the process. I'd expect around the start of Q2 or so they'll start allowing vaccinated business travellers from an initial list of countries (likely selected by a combination of set percentage of accepted vaccine rollout - say 70% - and importance as trading partner). Will also be significantly dependent on travel history. I don't expect Sinovac to make the approved list for quite some time, and Sputnik even longer.



I think that's going to be dependent on where they're traveling from, but again, they've already started the process of reducing the quarantine duration. Q2ish. Expect that they'll still be requiring quarantine for vaccinated travelers who've been to places with low levels of vaccine rollouts/high case numbers.


The reason I think we'll see a long period before Sputnik's accepted - the impact on new case numbers and death rate appears to be negligible.
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Compare to Mexico (similar rollout rate, but with Pfizer/Moderna):
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You can see pretty clearly that the Sputnik vaccine is comparatively ineffective - Mexico's death rates are already dropping even with a low vaccination rate.

China simply isn't releasing numbers, but a similar picture is arising in Mongolia, which rolled out Sinovac.

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These vaccines aren't being excluded from approval simply because of politics - they're pretty clearly not effective.
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… and yet the anti-vaxxers are in western countries. Damn spoiled Europeans and Americans. Should get a long stay in Putin-Land and Xi-Land to learn how lucky they actually are
 
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BTW. I am passing the 14 days of the entry quarantine at home, supposedly on the 10th they will tell me where I can go for a PCR test. If the result is negative I will be able to leave. I asked them what would happen if the test is positive. Should I stay only 4 more days? or does the quarantine go back to day zero? They just said “first take the PCR test at designated place or wait to day 14th to leave”.
Before that, they had rejected once my EU vaccination certificate “because it was not written in English”. They have a folder full of photocopies of certificates and they were just looking for a similar one to compare. The vaccination officer was unable to read the document. Another officer came. I showed them that my EU certificate is written in English plus two other languages. Still, they couldn't find the data. I showed them one by one where the information they were looking for was: vaccine brand, shots, date… Four people got together arguing and nodding for ten minutes and finally agreed to give me the OK. They gently apologized for the wait. Very nice people, but not professionals at all. When they will open to tourists they will have to digitize the process, or the wait will be hours.
 
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I would recommend not risking anything that would make you positive. I’m not 100% sure but probably would reset the counter for quarantine.
 
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Frenchy said:
… and yet the anti-vaxxers are in western countries. Damn spoiled Europeans and Americans. Should get a long stay in Putin-Land and Xi-Land to learn how lucky they actually are
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Well, in Russia a full year after they approved the vaccine they still were to reach the 20% mark but of course it helps when you don't need to be a raving lunatic to question the safety and effectivity of the vaccine.
 
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MikeH said:
Well, in Russia a full year after they approved the vaccine they still were to reach the 20% mark but of course it helps when you don't need to be a raving lunatic to question the safety and effectivity of the vaccine.
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Vlad became a softie then. Back in the good old comrades days it would have been vax or gulag. Heck even Macron gets better results with our “can’t get into bars without it” sadistic scheme.
 
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Frenchy said:
Heck even Macron gets better results with our “can’t get into bars without it” sadistic scheme.
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We did the same thing here, and that's why a couple of hours ago and three blocks from where I'm sitting, we had our weekly Saturday evening antivaxxer protest march. Maybe a hundred fucking morons in their MAGA hats with upside-down flags and nonsensical signs that look like a 5th grade special education class made them, howling and hollering and blocking traffic on the main boulevard for a couple hours.

What's really hilarious now is the current state of the American antivaxxer psyche, ever since Merck announced that it's seeking FDA emergency approval for its new antiviral pills and a number of other pharma corporations are doing the same. Across the country, the same dumb shit sister-fucking, shit-kicking antivaxxers who howled in protest because vaccines only had emergency approval and were supposedly just experimental, are now signing the praises and lining up in droves for a bunch of pills seeking emergency approval and are still experimental.

I wish the CIA would just lace the shipments of Merck pills headed for the southern states with some sort of sterilization agents. Granted, that would mean my beloved GOP would cease to exist in twenty years, but fuck it...at this point I would call that progress.
 
Joe2017 said:
BTW. I am passing the 14 days of the entry quarantine at home, supposedly on the 10th they will tell me where I can go for a PCR test. If the result is negative I will be able to leave. I asked them what would happen if the test is positive. Should I stay only 4 more days? or does the quarantine go back to day zero?
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They only accept a MD-supervised test for the 10th-day test. That means if you are found positive, the MD will report your case to your local hokenjo and a public health nurse of the hokenjo will contact you. The SOP is a self-isolation at home for 10 days from the date of the test if the symptoms are not life-threatening.
 
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Keihan said:
Granted, that would mean my beloved GOP would cease to exist in twenty years, but fuck it...at this point I would call that progress.
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Crisis of Faith Alert! The Yin needs the Yang you know. Also where would I get my comic relief if they disappear?
 
Guessing quarantines will end by the end of December. Vaccination rates are accelerating as a proportion of eligible and willing unvaccinated now. The overall numbers are slowing but that is because the pool of unvaccinated is shrinking at the same time.
 
homer69 said:
Guessing quarantines will end by the end of December. Vaccination rates are accelerating as a proportion of eligible and willing unvaccinated now. The overall numbers are slowing but that is because the pool of unvaccinated is shrinking at the same time.
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My guess is that once they are comfortable that the hospitals are operating normally, and have capacity to handle new waves of covid, they will open up quickly after vaccinations reach a fixed target - 75% , 80%?

Hopefully, that is after the ski season, and hopefully they don't open up to Chinese tourists until after Chinese New Year. But if China wants access, it will bully its way in. But maybe the Chinese are happy to see domestic tourism boom, and happy to see Chinese tourists blocked from entering Japan and other places.
 
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Australia will open up once we hit 80% and there has been talk of Japan being in the first round of countries that we open up to quarantine free travel. So I don’t think there will be too much wait past the start of 2022, if it even makes it that far.

Japan seems to have particularly good relations now with not just AU but plenty of other like-minded countries and we are all happy to give a subtle middle finger to China for putting us all in this mess in the first place.
 
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Frenchy said:
Crisis of Faith Alert! The Yin needs the Yang you know. Also where would I get my comic relief if they disappear?
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I thought I'd mentioned? I'll be starting my own political party here in America called FAGS (Firearms, Alcohol, Gold, Sodomy). I'm just trying to iron out the last details, like what shade of brown our uniforms will be, how tight to trim our moustaches and how to work my difficult-to-rhyme Japanese surname into the new national anthem and worship songs.
 
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namae said:
My guess is that once they are comfortable that the hospitals are operating normally, and have capacity to handle new waves of covid, they will open up quickly after vaccinations reach a fixed target - 75% , 80%?

Hopefully, that is after the ski season, and hopefully they don't open up to Chinese tourists until after Chinese New Year. But if China wants access, it will bully its way in. But maybe the Chinese are happy to see domestic tourism boom, and happy to see Chinese tourists blocked from entering Japan and other places.
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That's basically the plan around here. The governor had set 70% as the bar for reopening and removing restrictions until Delta showed up. Nobody's willing to use any number figures right now but with 5-11yo kids being eligible for the jab in the next few weeks, our hospitalizations and new daily infections down to double digits and dropping and a good number of the last holdout anti-vaxxers giving in after facing imminent employment termination for refusing the shot (or just dying, which also works as it frees up hospital/ICU beds for the non-retarded citizens) it's a pretty safe bet that--assuming another nasty variant doesn't arrive and explode like nothing we've seen yet--we're looking at families being able to gather for Christmas again and true re-opening in the new year.

I think I might discover religion and start going to church so I can pray that the Chinese aren't allowed back in until after summer. With the yen at at three-year-low of 114.36 to $1 and getting weaker by the day, I've got a dream watch shopping spree planned in Nakano, but that only works if the Chinese aren't able to descend on Tokyo like a bunch of fucking locusts and ruin everything.
 
Keihan said:
I think I might discover religion and start going to church
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Join the most popular religion in TAG; the Uncle Mike's Church of Spinners. I am pretty sure you will like our sermons.
 
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MikeH said:
Join the most popular religion in TAG; the Uncle Mike's Church of Spinners. I am pretty sure you will like our sermons.
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The first church with cheerleaders and pole dancers! Do you accept applications for missionary and (swinging) bishop positions?
 
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The airlines are starting to add back the flights to Japan previously cancelled so maybe Japan will open up sooner once enough of their population is fully vaccinated. That being said, there's still the election factor.

Will China open up for 2022 Winter Olympics? Probably not if they are still quarantining people for 14/21 days.
 
MikeH said:
Join the most popular religion in TAG; the Uncle Mike's Church of Spinners. I am pretty sure you will like our sermons.
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honestly his upcoming FAGS party will probably be more fun to follow . But I suppose its not mutually exclusive
 
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MikeH said:
Join the most popular religion in TAG; the Uncle Mike's Church of Spinners. I am pretty sure you will like our sermons.
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I am sure, @Frenchy was reading it as 'spermons' (which is the first person plural of the present indicative of the verb 'spermer').
French, thou divine language.
 
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