It started this weekend with a few cases in Kobe and Osaka, both within two hours of my town. Now I've heard there are cases in Himeji, which is the nearest city to me. Basically I'm sitting in the middle of the outbreak. No one in my town seems to have it yet. However, the government is freaking out, and they've closed all the schools in the prefecture for the rest of this week. Though the teachers still have to come in.
Everyone is wearing face masks. We've been urged to do so. While this might seem scary to Americans, who aren't used to (a) seeing face masks in use regularly, and (b) people freaking out obsessively about getting sick, keep in mind that many people in Japan wear face masks all winter long, simply to avoid getting the flu. It's not weird here. To us, seeing people all over wearing masks makes it seem like there's an outbreak of some deadly disease. But here they use them all the time. The stores are sold out because there was a rush on masks this weekend after the first cases were announced.
I know that the WHO is classifying this as a level 5 pandemic or whatever, and I'm doing my best to take the necessary precautions, but I have to say, honestly, people need to CALM DOWN about this flu. People over here have been acting like it's an outbreak of the plague. The Board of Education called all the ALTs in for a meeting yesterday to ask us if we'd be willing to hold off on going home for a while, instead of this summer, waiting until the fall or winter. They admitted this was kind of a moot point now that the flu has actually arrived here, but they're worried it's going to get worse in the next two months, not better. If this thing is still around in two months and still at a level 5 categorization, I am going to be incredibly surprised. Actually, the real reason they didn't want us going was not out of fear of us getting the flu, but more out of concern that we could be in the US, and the WHO would raise the alert level to 6, and we wouldn't be able to get back into Japan (I guess level 6 includes closing borders?)
Acceptance of cultural differences aside, if they had told me definitively I couldn't go home this summer, I'd've had to open up a can of whoop-ass on 'em.
