COVID-19 in Japan

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (1985-1987) I was active duty U.S. Navy and stationed in Yokosuka Japan. One of the things I noticed right away when I went off base was how many people would wear masks during cold and flu season. I was impressed by how considerate people were, not wanting to spread viruses and that. This was very common, and I saw it all the time. It got to the point that if I had a cold, I started feeling like I should wear a mask too. I wasn’t Japanese, but it was my adopted home and I had a lot of respect for Japanese people. My American friends at the Naval base thought I was crazy and ridiculed Japanese people who wore masks. I was surprised and disgusted with this attitude, as I saw Japanese people as much nicer and more considerate than Americans. 

So as I’m reading in the news, it seems Japan is getting another spike in COVID-19. Despite the fact that people there wear masks as a routine, it’s surprising and dismaying that they’re having problems with this. I just thought I’d point it out, because it’s very much in their culture to wear masks if they have colds or that. Japan was my favorite duty station. You know, it took me longer to adjust coming back to the U.S. as I felt so many Americans were rude and nasty compared to Japanese people. I wanted to go right back to Japan.

That was the first thing I thought when this whole thing got started, supposedly in China, and they started pushing the mask business. I said it was common practice for the Chinese people to wear masks, mainly due to the poor air quality, but if they were hit so hard with so many people already wearing mask, my question was, why did we think mask were going to make that much of a difference.

Well I got my government mask in the mail yesterday, and when I saw the QR code attached, requesting us citizens to download the "Combat COVID App", I could see that there was a method to their madness.