Mask-free Monday comes to Japan as government eases COVID guidelines (updated)

Toho Co (Tokyo)

13/03/2023 01:45

(Updates with Tokyo governor comment in 9th paragraph.)
    By Rocky Swift
       TOKYO, March 13 (Reuters) - The smiles and screams at
Tokyo Disneyland may be more obvious on Monday as the amusement
park and much of Japan relaxes face mask norms that have defined
the three-year COVID-19 pandemic. 
    Disney park operator Oriental Land Co  4661.T , East Japan
Railway Co  9020.T  and cinema operator Toho Co  9602.T  are
among the major companies allowing patrons to go maskless
starting Monday, based on revised government guidance announced
last month.
    But a rapid behavioral change is unlikely, given a long
history of mask usage in Japan and a pollen onslaught that has
given hay fever sufferers one of the worst spring seasons in
years.
    "Mask-wearing was part of our culture even before COVID-19,"
said Hitoshi Oshitani, a Tohoku University professor who was an
architect of Japan's COVID response. "I think many people will
be wearing masks even after the rules are relaxed."
    Japan is one of the last major economies to relax official
guidance on the coverings, whose usage has been nearly universal
throughout the country even without firm regulations or
penalties governing their use. 
    South Korea dialed back most requirements on indoor masking
in January, while Singapore allowed bare faces on public
transport last month. The United States and England halted most
mask mandates early last year.
    Japan has already eased norms on masks, allowing maskless
speeches in parliament and permitting schools to decide whether
to require them at commencement ceremonies this month. 
    Chief government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said last week
that masks would no longer be required at Cabinet meetings
starting Monday and that decisions on the coverings would be
left up to individual workspaces. 
    "As of today, mask wearing is at the discretion of each
individual," Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told reporters on
Monday. "However, hay fever is also a pretty intense this
season, so I think it boils down to the fact that you can wear
them for different reasons."
    Japan's COVID vaccination rate stands at more than 80% and
cases have ebbed after an eighth wave of infections that peaked
in early January.
    Health experts in Japan have pointed to widespread mask use
along with an embrace of hygiene and social distancing for the
country's relatively lower death toll from COVID. 
    Kyoto University professor Hiroshi Nishiura, one of the more
conservative voices among Japan's pandemic response experts,
said that voluntary masking on public transport and in other
spaces could have a continuing benefit in protecting against
infection.
    "That could have been incorporated as part of our daily
habit," he said. "The governmental decision in this time spoiled
that intent." 

 (Reporting by Rocky Swift. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
 ((rocky.swift@thomsonreuters.com;))