Japanese government to stop onboard flu checks of arriving airline passengers
Good news for tourists coming to Japan that are worried about having their vacation ruined by a forced quarantine:
“We need to shift the focus of our human resources from quarantine efforts to domestic countermeasures,” Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe said at a hastily arranged press conference Monday.
“That doesn’t mean there’s no point in trying to detect infected people at our airports, but we have limited human resources available,” he said Tuesday, adding he wants to divert some medical personnel involved in quarantine checks to efforts across the country to grapple with the new flu.
The checks of passengers on flights from Mexico, the United States and Canada–the countries that have been hit hardest by the new strain of the H1N1 virus–could end by the end of this week.
Resources will be redirected to fever centers and local governments.
Domestic flu infections had reached 193 as of this morning, with the outbreak limited to the Kansai area.
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Horrah!!
+ I no longer have to wait in long lines this weekend
- I might get swine flu in Japan -_-
DOH!
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I heard they were checking only the flights coming from North America. Don’t they knwo that the world is round? I could have fly to Narita via Incheon or Shanghai and smuggled a couple of viruses into Tokyo. What good does it do if you leave the back door wide open?
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Trying to keep flu from being carried via airplanes by only checking for people with fevers is kind of like trying to keep knives off airplanes by only checking people for stab wounds.
Then imagine that they only search the bags of people sitting within 2 meters of someone with a bleeding wound, and let everyone else go free.
And imagine that if nobody has a wound, the authorities assume that nobody was carrying a knife.
Yes, you’ll find a knife or two, but you have no chance in hell of keeping knife-wielding maniacs out of your country, especially if your country already has plenty of knife-wielding maniacs of its own.
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I am not aware of any discussion, or news, that would investigate the reasons why Japan of all the countries is actually hit with the flu so bad, and why they are young people being infected and why it is spreading in schools in Kansai area.
If anyone can send some links, would be appreciated. I am really wondering this anomaly that is happening in Japan regarding this virus.
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What I think is that there was a first wave that all the health professionals missed or overlooked and put it down to seasonal flu, and it wasn’t until the second wave when someone thought of testing for swine flu. The head of one of the schools at the centre had 143 kids off with flu-like symptoms before the first positive test came in.
I also heard that the source from the volleyball tourney that started the numbers counting got it from his sister, who had fully recovered without being diagnosed.
I’d like to think that Japanese reliance on the magical effects of masks is also to blame, but that’s perhaps wishful thinking!
Finally, to be morbid for a minute, I wonder if the first death will be from the disease or from a headmaster in shame.
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Or someone who get some nasty bacterial infection from overused and moist) mask….
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