A traveler's Japan quarantine ordeal: Toyota's hyperefficiency meets ‘Squid Game'

TOKYO — Auto executives traveling to Japan might want to reconsider, if the business trip can wait. In the age of the rampaging COVID-19 omicron variant, Japan's gauntlet of quarantine controls is a mind-boggling mix between the Toyota Production System and "Squid Game."

I recently returned to Tokyo from a work and family trip to Detroit. What awaited us at the capital's Haneda airport was as amazing for its overengineered, hyperefficient logistics as it was exasperating in its unyielding robotic bureaucracy. In a word: The ordeal was uniquely Japanese.

It entailed four hours of navigating checkpoints, installing tracking software on smartphones, taking yet another PCR test, signing a 14-day quarantine pledge and enduring immigration scrutiny unlike anything I've seen in my decade living here under "permanent residence" status. After finally being admitted to Japan, we were then hustled onto a rendition-like dark-of-night bus trip to a government-appointed hotel for the first three days of isolation.

All entrants to Japan must isolate for 14 days — usually at home. But those coming from COVID-19 hot spots, such as the U.S., are forced to initially quarantine at a hotel for between three and 14 days, depending on how bad the outbreak is at origin of travel. Michigan gets three days. Some states — including Florida, Texas, California and New York — get hit with a six-day hotel lockup.

At our hotel in central Tokyo, my two teenage daughters and I hugged farewell before being stowed away in separate rooms for the duration. Like a minimum-security prison, we can't leave the rooms. Three meals a day — Japanese bento lunchboxes and green tea — are left at the door.

Also not unlike prison: The government picks up the tab. At least we had that going for us.

Japan's hard-line guidelines, anathema to the relaxed approach taken in the U.S., are more akin to even stricter measures enforced in neighboring China. That country was in the news lately for locking down the entire city of Xian, a metropolis of some 13 million, as part of a zero-tolerance containment policy, amid reports of disrupted food and medical services there.

Japan's measures are part of this island nation's efforts to halt omicron's arrival at the water's edge by screening entrants to the country. As omicron advances across much of the world, Japan's ardent defense has slowed its spread here.

With the arrival of omicron, the U.S. is logging record levels of more than 1 million new cases a day. In Japan, by contrast, the daily tally recently exceeded 2,000 for the first time in months.

Keeping a lid on domestic transmission — aided by compulsive mask-wearing — has helped Japan avoid the lengthy factory shutdowns that have hammered other economies during the pandemic.

So Japan finds the quarantine bother a small price to pay — especially when the burden falls mostly on foreigners and those Japanese with the temerity to travel during a pandemic. Japanese automakers, for the most part, are curtailing international travel — such as to CES in Las Vegas — during the omicron outbreak.

When new arrivals land, they are herded through a maze of quarantine stations worthy of Ellis Island — all set up in unused airport gates, face masks mandatory.

After an initial screening, we received oversized laminated green tags to affix to our arms by rubber bands. These marked us as bound for the government quarantine hotels. Looking like Paddington with his yellow "look after this bear" label, we then moved on to the PCR test. There, more than 20 phone booth-like cubicles ringed the workspace, all filled with people spitting saliva into test tubes. We dropped off our samples and hoped for the best.

Next, we got our tracking apps installed. Per Ministry of Health decree, we must report our health condition on this app every morning for 14 days. Additionally, every day we receive random video calls to confirm that we are properly quarantining and not out roaming the streets.

Sometimes there is a real human caller, other times it is a robocall. When the app rings, you need to show your face with the room's background and let the app register your GPS coordinates. Throughout the day the app peppers us with other prompts for further confirmation. (This is on top of another, separate online health report we must fill out daily for the hotel.)

Fortunately, entrants get their own quarantine valet to walk them through the installation and setup of the software. And at a separate station, another staffer teaches you to use it.

With mechanical efficiency, the army of helpers ushered us through two hours of red tape. From the duplicate forms, ample signage in Japanese and English and methodical inspections to the green arm tags and spaced-out stations, nothing was left to chance. It called to mind the "poka-yoke" foolproofing techniques that form a cornerstone of the Toyota Production System.

Despite milling through station after station after station, there was never a lengthy wait (except for the final PCR test results). The line kept rolling like the best of Toyota's assembly plants.

After finally reaching baggage claim — nearly four hours after our 3:50 p.m. arrival — our six huge travel bags were even miraculously loaded onto carts, lined up and waiting for us. Wow.

After being guided to a bank of buses, our green tags were collected and our bags loaded by a team of attendants. At the hotel — where we were churned through another lengthy check-in — another group of handlers rushed out to carry in everyone's luggage.

From the plane's gangplank to the hotel's fifth-floor guestrooms, the whole experience was a masterful symphony of logistics. Still, the process was smoother for some than others.

For instance, my daughters, who hold Japanese passports, breezed through an automated immigration gate, simply scanning their documents, no questions asked.

But I, as a foreign re-entrant, was given a 10-minute third-degree by two human agents, who scrutinized the timing of my U.S. PCR test and took copious handwritten notes in the margins of my papers while stamping them with flurries of officious seals. The officers then stapled the forms together in a thick packet before dumping it in a bin under the desk.

It was a scene straight out of a 1950's U.S. post office.

Days at the hotel begin at 6:30 a.m., like it or not. That's when the first in the day's regimen of announcements reverberates through the room over the PA. Bing, bing, bing, bing goes the ascending chime. Then, instructions for the day's PCR tests, in English and Japanese. At breakfast, lunch and dinner — bing, bing, bing, bing, again, again and again. The bentos, heavy on rice and vegetables, are dropped on luggage racks in the hall.

The to-and-fro whisking of unseen hotel workers can be heard throughout the day on the other side of the door, evoking the faceless wardens in the Netflix dystopian drama "Squid Game."

Still, in many ways, we lucked out. Those tapped for hotel quarantine typically are tucked into accommodations across Tokyo and Yokohama. But when local rooms aren't available, some have been sent to far-flung cities — even by plane. And although the health ministry notified us that someone on our flight tested COVID-19-positive, it appears we dodged the "close contact" bullet.

At one point, Japan was mandating 14-day hotel stays for all passengers in such circumstances.

If our luck holds out, and we test negative on our third day, we'll be home that evening. Then we can serve out the rest of our 14 days from the comfort of our own abode.

But getting home is no simple affair either. From the quarantine hotels, people are packed back onto buses and returned to Haneda airport. From there, they must take private cars back home.

Public transportation, even taxis, is banned for us all until the end of our isolation period.

When that glorious day arrives and I'm finally deemed safe for society, I will probably take a long walk in the fresh air and have a hard think about any overseas travel anytime soon.

Asia Editor Hans Greimel awaits his PCR test result at the Haneda airport after his return from a visit to the U.S. Bento boxes, above, served as meals during his hotel stay under Japan's quarantine protocols.