Originally Posted by
ts.pub
I don't think the expectation is the entire extra 30k people allowed in per day will be using ERFS system. I know a lot of Japanese were equally reluctant to leave the country due to the valid fear they might test positive before their return flight to Japan and be stuck in a foreign country longer than expected. With the removal of that test for them as well I expect a larger percentage of Japanese might be willing to travel internationally and make up a good percentage of that extra 30k.
Good point - I forgot about the removal of the testing requirement. Side note: it seems to me that if they were really concerned about controlling COVID while expanding tourism, they'd have kept the testing requirement in place for everyone (citizens, residents, and visitors) instead of removing that and implementing ERFS. But I digress.
Personally, I've never considered a testing requirement to be that big a deal. I figure that if I'm leaving for somewhere and I have an active case of COVID, I'd much rather know about it before I left so I could postpone rather than not know until it flared up mid-trip. But as you point out, it's a different calculus for people returning to their own country, where a positive test could delay your return. But, that is kinda selfish, don't you think - the only time a positive COVID test would delay your return to your own country is when you had COVID, in which case a responsible person wouldn't want to board an airplane and expose everyone else to it.