TOKYO — With the emergence of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus late last week, countries across the globe rushed to close their borders to travelers from southern Africa, even in the absence of scientific information about whether such measures were necessary or likely to be effective in stopping the virus’s spread.

东京——随着新冠变异病毒奥密克戎毒株上周晚些时候出现，各国纷纷对来自非洲南部的旅行者关闭边境，至于是否有必要采取此类措施阻止病毒传播，或这样做是否有效，尚未有相关的科学信息。

Japan has gone further than most other countries so far, announcing on Monday that the world’s third-largest economy would be closed off to travelers from everywhere.

到目前为止，日本的措施比大多数国家都要严格。作为世界第三大经济体，它在周一宣布关闭边境，全面禁止外国旅客入境。

It is a familiar tactic for Japan. The country has barred tourists since early in the pandemic, even as most of the rest of the world started to travel again. And it had only tentatively opened this month to business travelers and students, despite recording the highest vaccination rate among the world’s large wealthy democracies and after seeing its coronavirus caseloads plunge by 99 percent since August.

这种策略对日本来说并不陌生。自疫情初期以来，该国就禁止旅客入境，甚至在世界大部分地区已经开始恢复旅行后也依旧如此。尽管在全球富裕的大型民主国家中疫苗接种率最高，并且自8月以来新冠病例数骤降了99%，但该国本月才试探性地向商务旅客和学生开放。

Now, as the doors slam shut again, Japan provides a sobering case study of the human and economic cost of those closed borders. Over the many months that Japan has been isolated, thousands of life plans have been suspended, leaving couples, students, academic researchers and workers in limbo.

现在，随着大门再次关上，日本的情况提供了一个发人深省的案例研究，说明了闭关锁国导致的人力和经济成本。在日本与外界隔离的几个月里，千千万万的生活计划暂停，夫妻、学生、学术研究人员和工人陷入了困境。

Ayano Hirose has not been able to see her fiancé in person for the past 19 months, since he left Japan for his native Indonesia, just two weeks after her parents blessed their marriage plans.

过去19个月，广濑绫野（音）自未婚夫离开日本回到印度尼西亚老家后，就没再与他见过面。他离开的两周前，他们的婚事刚刚得到她父母的祝福。

As Japan has remained closed to most outsiders, Ms. Hirose and her fiancé, Dery Nanda Prayoga, saw no clear path to a reunion. Indonesia had started allowing some visitors, but the logistical challenges were steep. So the couple has made do with multiple daily video calls. When they run out of things to talk about, they play billiards on Facebook Messenger or watch Japanese variety shows together online.

由于日本对大多数境外人士仍然保持关闭，广濑和她的未婚夫德瑞·南达·帕尤加看不到重聚的明确途径。印度尼西亚已开始允许一些旅客入境，但行程安排面临严峻挑战。因此，这对夫妇每天进行多次视频通话。当无话可说时，他们会在Facebook Messenger上打台球或在网上一起看日本综艺节目。

“We don’t want to suffer in pain at the thought of not being able to reunite in the near future,” said Ms. Hirose, 21, who has written letters to the foreign and justice ministries asking for an exemption to allow Mr. Dery to come to Japan. “So we will think positively and continue to hold out hope.”

21岁的广濑曾写信给外交部和司法部，为德瑞提出豁免请求。她说：“一想到无法很快团聚就感到痛苦，我们不想这样。所以我们会想得乐观一些，并继续抱有希望。”

As the United States, Britain and most of Europe reopened over the summer and autumn to vaccinated travelers, Japan and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region opened their borders only a crack, even after achieving some of the world’s highest vaccination rates. Now, with the emergence of the Omicron variant, Japan, along with Australia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia and South Korea, are quickly battening down again.

当美国、英国和欧洲大部分地区在夏季和秋季重新向已接种疫苗的旅行者开放，日本和亚太地区的其他国家即使在实现了世界上最高的疫苗接种率之后，也只开了一条缝。现在，随着奥密克戎变异毒株的出现，日本以及澳大利亚、泰国、斯里兰卡、新加坡、印度尼西亚和韩国马上严阵以待。

China, which has barred international tourists since the start of the pandemic, is so far still issuing visas for work or diplomatic purposes, although limited flight options and lengthy quarantines have deterred travelers. Taiwan has prohibited nearly all nonresidents from entering since early in the pandemic. Australia, which only recently started allowing citizens and visa holders to travel abroad, said on Monday that it would delay a relaxation of its border restrictions. Sri Lanka, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand have all barred travelers from southern Africa, where the variant was first reported.

中国自疫情开始以来就禁止国际旅客入境，目前仍在发放工作或外交签证，然而数量有限的航班以及长时间的隔离措施令旅行者望而却步。自疫情初期以来，台湾几乎禁止所有非居民入境。最近才开始允许公民和签证持有者出国旅行的澳大利亚周一表示，将推迟放宽边境限制。奥密克戎变异毒株在非洲南部首次被发现，斯里兰卡、新加坡、韩国、印度尼西亚和泰国都禁止了来自那里的旅客。

Although the true threat of the new variant is not yet clear, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan told reporters on Monday that he had decided to revoke the relaxations for business travelers and international students in order to “avoid the worst-case scenario.”

虽然人们对新变异毒株的威胁情况尚不了解，但日本首相岸田文雄周一告诉记者，他已决定取消对商务旅客和国际学生放宽的措施，以“避免最坏的情况”。

The government’s decision to close again reflects its desire to preserve its successes battling the virus and to prevent the kind of strain on the health care system that it experienced over the summer during an outbreak of the Delta variant.

从政府再次关闭的决定可以看到，它希望保持抗击病毒的成功，防止医疗保健系统再次遭受夏季那次德尔塔变异毒株暴发造成的压力。

Japan is recording only about 150 coronavirus cases a day, and before the emergence of the Omicron variant, business leaders had been calling for a more aggressive reopening.

日本日增新冠病例仅约150例，在奥密克戎变异毒株出现之前，商界领袖一直呼吁更积极地重新开放。

“At the beginning of the pandemic, Japan did what most countries around the world did — we thought we needed proper border controls,” Yoshihisa Masaki, director of communications at Keidanren, Japan’s largest business lobbying group, said in an interview earlier this month.

“在疫情开始时，日本做了世界上大多数国家所做的事情——我们认为我们需要适当地控制边境，”正木义久（音）本月早些时候在接受采访时表示，他是日本最大的商业游说团体日本经济团体联合会的传讯及公关事务主管。

But as cases diminished, he said, the continuation of firm border restrictions threatened to stymie economic progress. “It will be like Japan being left behind in the Edo Period,” Mr. Masaki said, referring to Japan’s isolationist era between the 17th and mid-19th centuries.

但他说，随着病例的减少，继续严格的边境限制可能会阻碍经济进步。正木说：“这就像日本在江户时代那样落于人后。”他指的是从17世纪到19世纪中叶日本的孤立主义时代。

Japan had already lagged countries in Southeast Asia, where the economies are dependent on tourism revenues and governments tiptoed out in front in the push to reopen. Thailand had recently reopened to tourists from 63 countries, and Cambodia had just started to welcome vaccinated visitors with minimal restrictions. Other countries, like Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, were allowing tourists from certain countries to arrive in restricted areas.

日本已经落后于经济依赖旅游收入的东南亚国家，该地区各国政府在推动重新开放的过程中小心翼翼地走在前面。泰国最近对来自63个国家的游客重新开放，柬埔寨刚刚开始以最少的限制欢迎接种过疫苗的游客。马来西亚、越南和印度尼西亚等国允许来自某些国家的游客进入限制区域。

Wealthier Asian countries like Japan resisted the pressure to reopen. With the exception of its decision to hold the Summer Olympics, Japan has been cautious throughout the pandemic. It was early to shut its borders and close schools. It rolled out its vaccination campaign only after conducting its own clinical trials. And dining and drinking hours remained restricted in many prefectures until September.

日本这样较富裕的亚洲国家顶住了重新开放的压力。除了决定举办夏季奥运会，日本在整个疫情期间一直谨慎行事。它早早关闭了边境和学校，在进行了自己的临床试验之后才展开疫苗接种。直到9月，许多县的外出餐饮和饮酒时间仍然受到限制。

Foreign companies could not bring in executives or other employees to replace those who were moving back home or to another international posting, said Michael Mroczek, a lawyer in Tokyo who is president of the European Business Council.

东京的律师、欧洲商会主席迈克尔·莫罗泽克表示，外国公司无法引进高管或其他员工来取代要调回本国或到其他国家工作的人。

In a statement on Monday, the council said business travelers or new employees should be allowed to enter provided they follow strict testing and quarantine measures.

在周一的声明中，商会表示，只要遵循严格的检测和隔离措施，商务旅行者或新员工应被允许入境。

“Trust should be put in Japan’s success on the vaccination front,” the council said. “And Japan and its people are now firmly in a position to reap the economic rewards.”

“应该相信日本在疫苗接种方面取得的成功，”商会表示。“而日本和其人民现在正处于收获经济回报的稳固地位。”

Business leaders said they wanted science to guide future decisions. “Those of us who live and work in Japan appreciate that the government’s policies so far have substantially limited the impact of the pandemic here,” said Christopher LaFleur, former American ambassador to Malaysia and special adviser to the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

商业领袖们表示，他们希望由科学来指导未来的决策。前美国驻马来西亚大使、日本美国商会特别顾问克里斯托弗·拉福勒说：“我们这些在日本生活和工作的人都认识到，政府迄今为止的政策基本上控制住了疫情对日本的影响。”

But, he said, “I think we really need to look to the science over the coming days” to see whether a complete border shutdown is justified.

但是，他说，“我认为在未来几天，我们真的需要相信科学”——来看看彻底关闭边境是否合理。

Students, too, have been thrown into uncertainty. An estimated 140,000 or more have been accepted to universities or language schools in Japan and have been waiting months to enter the country to begin their courses of study.

学生们也被抛入不确定的境地。据估计，目前有14万或更多已经被日本的大学或语言学校录取的人，几个月来一直在等待进入日本开始学业。

Carla Dittmer, 19, had hoped to move from Hanstedt, a town south of Hamburg, Germany, to Japan over the summer to study Japanese. Instead, she has been waking up every morning at 1 to join an online language class in Tokyo.

19岁的卡拉·迪特默原本希望在这个夏天从德国汉堡南部的汉施泰特到日本学习日语。如今，她每天凌晨1点起床，参加东京的一个在线语言课程。

“I do feel anxious and, frankly speaking, desperate sometimes, because I have no idea when I would be able to enter Japan and if I will be able to keep up with my studies,” Ms. Dittmer said. “I can understand the need of caution, but I hope that Japan will solve that matter with immigration precautions such as tests and quarantine rather than its walls-up policy.”

“有时候我确实很焦虑，坦率地说，甚至是绝望，因为我不知道什么时候才能进入日本，也不知道自己的学习进度能不能跟上，”迪特默说。“我可以理解谨慎的必要性，但我希望日本能通过检测和隔离等移民预防措施来解决问题，而不是通过高墙政策。”

The border closures have economically flattened many regions and industries that rely on foreign tourism.

边境关闭使许多依赖外国旅游业的地区和行业经济受到重创。

When Japan announced its reopening to business travelers and international students earlier this month, Tatsumasa Sakai, 70, the fifth-generation owner of a shop that sells ukiyo-e, or woodblock prints, in Asakusa, a popular tourist destination in Tokyo, hoped that the move was a first step toward further reopening.

本月早些时候，当日本宣布对商务旅行者和国际学生重新开放时，70岁的酒井辰正（音）希望此举是迈向进一步重开的起点。他在东京热门景点浅草经营一家出售浮世绘的店铺，已是第五代店主。

“Since the case numbers were going down, I thought that we could have more tourists and Asakusa could inch toward coming back to life again,” he said. “I guess this time, the government is just taking precautionary measures, but it is still very disappointing.”

 “随着病例数下降，我觉得我们会有更多游客，浅草可以慢慢恢复生机，”他说。“我想这次政府只是在采取预防措施，但还是很令人失望。”

Mr. Dery and Ms. Hirose also face a long wait. Mr. Dery, who met Ms. Hirose when they were both working at an automotive parts maker, returned to Indonesia in April 2020 after his Japanese work visa expired. Three months before he departed, he proposed to Ms. Hirose during an outing to the DisneySea amusement park near Tokyo.

德里和广濑也面临着漫长的等待。两人是在一家汽车零部件制造商工作时认识的。德里在日本的工作签证到期后，于2020年4月返回印尼。出发前三个月，他在东京附近的迪士尼海洋乐园向广濑求婚。

Ms. Hirose had booked a flight to Jakarta for that May so that the couple could marry, but by then, the borders were closed in Indonesia.

广濑订了今年5月飞往雅加达的机票，去和德里结婚，但到了5月，印尼边境已经关闭。

“Our marriage plan fell apart,” Mr. Dery, 26, said by telephone from Jakarta. “There’s no clarity on how long the pandemic would last.”

“我们的结婚计划失败了，”26岁的德里在雅加达接受电话采访时说。“目前还不清楚疫情会持续多久。”

Just last week, Mr. Dery secured a passport and was hoping to fly to Japan in February or March.

就在上周，德里拿到了护照，希望能在明年2月或3月飞往日本。

Upon hearing of Japan’s renewed border closures, he said he was not surprised. “I was hopeful,” he said. “But suddenly the border is about to close again.”

听到日本再次关闭边境时，他说自己并不感到意外。“我本来满怀希望，”他说。“但突然之间，边境又要关闭了。”

“I don’t know what else to do,” he added. “This pandemic seems endless.”

“我不知道还能做什么，”他还说。“这场疫情好像没有尽头。”