Thursday, June 11, 2009

Japan Trip 2009: Quarantine!

I'm falling behind on my Japan trip report, so I figured I'd better post this now given that it's already getting pretty obsolete:


I'd heard that Japan was being a little paranoid about the H1N1 swine flu virus (ironic, given that regular old non-swine flu seems to be their biggest problem), and sure enough, when we landed at Narita our airplane was quarantined before we were allowed off.

What this meant was that we all had to sit down and wait as a group of doctors in full protective bio-suits roamed up and down the plane looking for people who they thought might be sick. It was like something out of a Spielberg movie, and I really wanted to take photos of these people but I was afraid that'd be an excuse for them to pull me off the plane. I did at least get the souvenir "You were quarantined!!" notice pictured above.

The funny thing was there seemed to be no scientific methodology to whatever these doctors were doing. I suppose they were looking for anyone sweating, or coughing, or pale, or whatever. But surely this disease has an incubation period, or symptoms that can be hidden in the early stages - I mean, can you really control a virus by just looking at people to see if you think they're sick? It all seemed pointless.

Anyway, it didn't take long, and it gave me a little story to tell.

1 comment:

  1. Oh sheesh. My wife and kids are going to Japan from NY next week, and I just developed a cough myself (I don't think it's any kind of a flu).

    ReplyDelete

About This Blog

This is increasingly not a blog about Alphabet City, New York. I used to live in the East Village and work on Avenue B, but I no longer do. Why don't I change the name if I'm writing about Japan and video games and guitars? Because New Yorkers are well-rounded people with varied interests, and mine have gone increasingly off the rails over the years. And I don't feel like changing the name. I do still write about New York City sometimes.

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