Abe regrets two returnees’ refusal of virus tests

January 30, 2020

Tokyo--Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that it is "very regrettable" that two Japanese returnees from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, refused to have virus tests.

Officials "tried for a long time" to persuade them to accept virus tests as the government has no legal grounds to forcibly conduct such tests, Abe told a House of Councillors committee meeting.

The two were among the first batch of Japanese nationals brought back home on a government-chartered plane on Tuesday.

The prime minister said the government is now asking Japanese citizens still in the locked-down Chinese city and surrounding areas, before they board additional charter flights to return home, to agree to undergo virus tests.

During the Upper House committee meeting, Abe agreed to the view expressed by an opposition lawmaker that it is problematic that Taiwan was not invited to an emergency meeting of the World Health Organization on the coronavirus outbreak.

Meanwhile, the government charging passengers of charter flights from Wuhan about 80,000 yen is questioned by officials of both ruling and opposition parties.

"They have no choice but to return home with anxiety in this emergency situation, so the government should cover (the flight costs)," Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi, Abe's coalition partner, said at a party meeting on Thursday.

At a press conference on the day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga defended the flight charges.

"We basically ask (passengers of government-chartered planes) to pay the cost, except for cases in which the government must ask them to flee areas affected by a civil war, military strikes or other incidents, regardless of their will," Suga said. Jiji Press\