Thursday, January 17, 2019

The Flu season

Since last Tuesday (probably), the flu has been spreading. Yesterday, I was going to have five individual lessons, but three of them canceled it because of the flu.
In Japan if one-third of the students in the class are absent  because of a cold or the flu, the class is closed  for a couple of days. Then if one-third of the classes of a grade are closed, the whole grade is closed.
Flu is highly infection.


The sick students must be in bed, but, the healthy students who don't catch the flu yet may be happy not to go to school. However they are "forbidden" to go out. Because we have to prevent the virus from  spreading. What they do at home is probably playing the game, or studying by themselves.
Additionally working parents of younger kids  have a trouble to find someone to take care of them.
 if the kids are in the lower grade.

I know the flu is really bad. We have a high fever and feel really bad. On the other hand nowadays we have very effective medicine. So just taking medicine once , the fever subsides immediately. And we seem to get well for a day. But  the doctor usually issues a medical clearance  after one week.

However it is really difficult for kids to stay home.
They go out to buy snacks at a convivence store nearby,  go to the library, or somewhere
They look fine, but they may be carrying  so the virus spreads.

What a strange cycle it is!

No comments: