Swine Flu

I'm sitting outside after a morning patio breakfast, enjoying the fresh air.

Fresh air. How are you all handling the Swine Influenza scare we have been having?

Japan has been in the throes of trying to keep contagion away but I think it is a losing battle. As of last night's news, there were 303 reported cases of Swine flu in Japan. Daily the TV and newspapers tell us to stay at home, wash hands for more than 15 seconds at a time, avoid crowds, wear masks and NOT go to the doctor in case of a fever. More and more people are using a grocery delivery service rather than risk going shopping and in the infected areas schools and kindergartens are shutting down for the duration (which means mothers can't go to work!)

Even with all these precautions the virus got through the barriers and has spread into the central prefectures and this has affected tourism and life in general in that part of the country. Hotels and businesses report that some of the popular tourist sights look like ghost towns these days. Japanese jr. high and high school students go to Kyoto and Nara by the tens of thousands every year and school trips have been scheduled for years in advance so to cancel out now is a loss for everyone concerned. Nevertheless some schools are cancelling their trips and some are taking other health precautions.

Yesterday the news showed students on their school trip in Kyoto and they had been forbidden to get out of their taxi! The taxi driver just drove 4 students around in his taxi all day, showed them the sights from the car window, bought them hamburgers at Mac Donald's and did their souvenir shopping for them while the kids waited in the taxi! What kind of a school trip is that?! Seems to miss the point of learning about the culture of Japan! (Granted the four girls interviewed seemed to be having a great time in the taxi.) Picture from the Internet

Well, so far the virus hasn't come this far north but it is only a matter of time. I no longer know what it sensible and what is obsessive. Very often in Japan, the news reports an exaggerated view of things and I find out later that the rest of the world isn't going to the same extremes. For example years ago with the SARS outbreak, Japan went nuts and people weren't travelling, weren't going to stores etc. But my family in America reported that at least in California it was barely making the news.

With Swine flu I'm wondering if it is much the same. All the stores, even in my area, are completely sold out of masks. Even the hospitals report that they don't have enough masks for their doctors and nurses! Well, I've never been able to get used to wearing a mask anyway, and only when I am feverish and coughing will I resort to one just to sit in the doctor's waiting room. (I never know if I am protecting myself from other people's germs or if I'm protecting them from mine.) If I could FIND a mask should I wear it because the rest of Japan is wearing masks? Is a mask really a shield against all those tiny influenza viruses? Picture from the Internet

I pulled out a mask that my friend who had lived in Taiwan had given me. I think these types of masks are used by people who travel around on their motorcycles along the dusty streets of Taiwan. Hmm. Talk about extremes! I could hold up a bank wearing this! So I tried sewing a smaller version.

I hope I don't have to use these. I either feel like a bank robber or an escaped mad scientist. At least I don't have to wear lipstick.

And for all the levity, I am praying for those people where the situation may be serious.

How about you? Has Swine flu affected your life very much these past couple months?