Pause life, coronavirus is here

I was going to post about last Monday’s Emperor’s birthday public holiday🎂(his birthday was February 23, his first birthday as an emperor), how we went to Aomori for skiing ⛷and a little bit about Aomori for today’s post🍎.
However, life in Japan cannot ignore the effect of coronavirus or COVID-19🦠.

The last couple of weeks

Since a couple of weeks ago, our company announced that our team had to work from home 2 out of 5 days unless we received an approval to come into work (something I have never heard before).

My colleagues and friends living in Japan have been receiving requests to send over some masks from their friends in China and Hong Kong as they cannot buy any 😷.  In Japan, they have started to sell out and the mask price surged.

Many popular tourist destinations including Kyoto and Hokkaido have experienced a massive drop in visitation numbers.

This week

From this week, we’re working from home full time until further notice. Fortunately as a startup, we already have a system in place to work remotely but it’s never been done before where everyone is working remotely at once. The announcement came last Friday when I was working from home so I don’t know when I’ll see everyone at work next.
Outside my relatively safe bubble, things are much more serious:

• Last week, someone in our ward (Minato-ku) was detected with coronavirus and the entire office block had to be evacuated and disinfected
• on February 27th, Japanese Prime Minister Abe has announced that all schools will close from March 2 until early April (which seemed like an abrupt decision not discussed with the education minister)
• people are worried about Tokyo Olympics getting postponed, canceled or moved from Tokyo (back off London!)
• many events are postponed, canceled or reduced in numbers to avoid a crowd gathering including Tokyo marathon strictly limiting participants to elite runners, baseball events will be played without spectators, kabuki performances will be canceled between March 2-10, Universal Studios and Tokyo Disneyland will close between March 1-15, 
• shares are plummeting globally
• many companies have started working from home including all 3,800 employees of the Japanese largest trading company, Mitsubishi Shouji.
• 9 countries issued warnings against travel to Japan unless necessary.

I feel for all the students who will miss out on their year-end graduations, entrance exams and the key school memories.  I feel for everyone who worked hard towards the events and tourists who looked forward to visiting Japan (especially with the cherry blossom season coming up).  One of my friends from Sydney has been looking forward to visiting Japan but now she’s unsure if her trip will actually happen.  This is affecting so many people in so many ways with significant financial consequences.

Last weekend, my colleague visited a jazz concert with well-known artists performing in Tokyo.  To get into the venue, they were:

• tested for their temperature to make sure they didn’t have any fever🥵
• squirted a very generous amount of hand sanitiser
• provided with a face mask if they weren’t wearing one (she wandered where the event organisers got their hands on masks)
• the seatings were organised in a grid format where a small group of people were seated together to avoid a big crowd

Good on the event organisers for going ahead with the event (as the show biz popular saying goes, “the show must go on!”) but I’m sure the atmosphere wasn’t what people expected when they purchased the ticket.

Also, what a disaster waiting to happen – working from home for parent/s and bored kids all cooped up at home🤯.

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Today is the last day of winter. Usually, it’s a moment when people is cheerful as early cherry blossoms start to blossom and spring is in the air.  First spring of this new decade was robbed by a fear of coronavirus.

Looking at the statistics- yes, coronavirus is spreading rapidly to so many countries but in Japan there are 226 infected people (excluding Diamond Princess) including 4 deaths and 22 recovered (Coronavirus global cases by John Hopkins CSSE). In contrast, between September 2018 to January 2019, over 12,000 people were hospitalised for influenza in Japan (Nippon.com).  Although COVID-19 is an unknown disease, the number seems quite tame but it is overshadowed by the global fear.

Part of me thinks this is overhyped with many deaths are by old, frail people yet I think twice before heading outside. The more I don’t go out, the more I rely on online news source that constantly publishes doom and gloom articles injecting more fear and uncertainty.

No one knows how long this will go on for.  I sense many people will heavily rely on online delivery and internet for entertainment this weekend from safety of their home. It’s good to be cautious but I do want to take things with a grain of salt, get out of my pjs and venture out this weekend (with a handful of disinfectants, masks and sunglasses on).

Remember:

• wash your hands especially after you went outside
• avoid touching your face
• ventilate your house
• you can get infected through your eyes, not just nose and mouth so protect your eyes when you’re outside
• if you’re not well, stay at home and rest.

Take care and stay safe everyone 💪.