Swine Flu Level 5 Super-Emergency-Everyone-Panic ALERT!!!!

Every year, the medical school puts on a big spring festival. Students set up tents and make octopus balls, noodles, lizard heads* and other scrumptious morsels to sell, while music groups perform, martial arts clubs put on exhibitions, and people from the community come to eat and watch all of the different events. Last year, I went to the festival for a bit to support my English students, and left thinking that it was a pretty cool community outreach event and a nice way for the med students to showcase the fun things about their school.

Unfortunately, this past weekend, this year's medical festival was suddenly canceled. Why, you may ask? According to the medical school administration, since there's a big swine flu outbreak going on right now, it would be irresponsible of the medical school to sponsor a big public gathering where the infection could potentially spread.

...I sort of understand what they're saying...but I feel like there's one small detail I ought to point out:

Number of cases of swine flu in Ehime as of last weekend: ...um.....that would be....0.

How can the swine flu spread if it's not even here yet??**

Anyway, while some of the medical school students were upset that their big event was canceled, I was surprised to hear almost nobody complaining about how unreasonable the decision was. In fact, a lot of people here have decided that it's one more reason to get worked up about the flu. If you think the news coverage in the US is overblown, you haven't seen anything yet. Since the beginning of this month, the news here has almost literally been a 24-7 Swine Flu Network.*** blech...I can hardly stand to watch it.

Amidst all of this paranoia, I can't help but think that it was a little irresponsible of the medical school to cancel the whole festival and fan the flames. If the medical school's top concern was really public health, wouldn't it have been better to put the festival on as planned and add special lectures to educate the public about the real risks of the flu and proper hand-washing/flu prevention techniques? I dunno...that seems more reasonable to me....

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Last week, everyone in Japan decided that they should wear surgical masks**** to prevent the spread of infection, so there was a big rush and the medical school completely ran out. I've noticed that my roommate has a box of masks sitting on our kitchen table. I'm kind of tempted to steal it and sell it on the black market. Betcha I could probably get at least a couple thousand bucks for it...


* Just kidding.

** There have been about 345 cases of swine flu in Japan so far, most of them in Osaka, which is an 8 hour ferry ride, 6 hour bus ride, or 1 hour plane ride away from Ehime, depending on how rich you are.

*** I'm live here from Osaka with Ms. Toshiko Suzuki. Ms. Suzuki went on a trip to Mexico three years ago, and now has decided to quarantine herself in an Osaka hotel room to make absolutely sure that she doesn't spread the swine flu to her three grandchildren...

****One of my bosses (who is a great guy, by the way) always wears a surgical mask wherever he goes, even before the swine flu outbreak became big news. He is so religious about his face coverage that I think I've seen his nose and mouth only about twice in the last six months. He actually reminds me a bit of this guy... Anyway, my boss is obviously taking the news about the flu seriously -- since it broke, he's been wearing yet another mask on top of his usual mask. I would think it'd be hard to breathe after awhile, but luckily it doesn't seem to phase him. :)