Nikkei wrote that as a number of pre-Olympic international sports events are scheduled to take place in Japan in April and later, the GOJ is planning to open the border to foreign athletes and sports officials contingent on the lifting of the COVID-19 state of emergency. They will be allowed to visit Japan in accordance with a provision of the Immigration Control Law that authorizes the entry of aliens under “extraordinary circumstances.” In addition to athletes and sports officials, international students and educators on government-sponsored study programs, as well as certain engineers, will also be eligible to enter under the same clause. Nikkei added that a daily cap of 2,000 will be placed on such visitors to prevent the infiltration of new variants of the novel coronavirus.