Things here have taken a strange turn with the discovery of some domestic cases of the new strain of influenza in Kobe and Osaka. It was a direct result of this pandemic that had Kuniko and I up this Monday morning in our bathrobes sipping mimosas and eating homemade bagels while the rest of the neighborhood went off to work. <\/p>\n
Until recently Japan had no domestic cases of the new flu – some people were quarantined coming back from overseas trips, but in the end they had a regular flu bug. Finally a high school student in Kobe was found to be infected, but he hadn’t been overseas at all. This caused a little bit of concern – and within a week there were almost 100 people diagnosed, with most of them being students in various schools.<\/p>\n
School trips were canceled, activities postponed, and students were urged to wash their hands more often, wear medical masks, and generally be more cautious.<\/p>\n
The cases are limited to the Kobe and Osaka areas, which is where we live and work. Kuniko was advised a couple of days ago that her school was going to close down for a week at the recommendation of the prefectural school board, despite having no students with the flu. Kuniko still has to go to work for three of the five days to sit around and kill time, but she gets a couple of days off this week. That meant we could relax and enjoy a mid-week day off together. So, we’re going to do just that today.<\/p>\n
One of the funny things that we heard was that Kuniko will be required to wear a mask while at school. If you didn’t know already, many people here in Japan wear medical masks – flu pandemic or not. On any given day I see hundreds of people wearing them, and it has really become normal for me – I’ve stopped seeing them, they’re such a normal sight. I could blog for hours just on the masks, but to sum it up I’m not convinced that they are effective in doing much beyond giving people a false sense of security. <\/p>\n
As more and more people are discovered with the new flu, it will be interesting to see if Kuniko’s school opens up again or if they continue to keep students at home. Until then, we’ll be enjoying ourselves at home, waiting for people’s fear to blow over, and sipping mimosas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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