JAPAN WON'T LET PASSENGERS OFF PLANES FROM MEXICO (UNTIL DRS/NURSES CHECK EACH PERSON UPON LANDING)

Nikkei News, Japan (in Japanese) ^ | 27 April 2009 | Nikkei News

[mkjessup]

Thanks Gramma! Stay safe! Watch out for sick lookin’ swine!

[Brad’s Gramma]

Boy howdy!

Disclaimer: I merely Googled the saying...can't tell ya any more than that.

[lainie]

It'd be interesting to be a fly on the various commanding officers' walls these days. I wonder what instructions, guidance or support they're getting from Washington.

Another photo:

A quarantine officer checks thermographic images of passengers arriving from the USA at Kansai Airport in Osaka, western Japan, on April 25. Japan remained on high alert for swine flu following reports of deadly outbreaks among people in Mexico.

[mkjessup]

THANK you Gramma! I should have thought of that!

From the article: (”Was your mom mad at you?” “Boy howdy! I’m grounded for a month.”)

Now THAT sure sounded familiar!!!! LOL :)

[AmericanInTokyo]

(Takin care of business .... (Bachman-Turner Overdrive?)....

(snip) "Also on Sunday, Prime Minister Taro Aso ordered the Cabinet's crisis-management officer to come up with measures to block swine flu from entering Japan, officials said..... "We must stop the entry and spread (of swine flu) in Japan at the border," Aso told reporters on a Japan Coast Guard vessel he had boarded for an inspection parade..... The crisis-management officer, Tetsuro Ito, was also ordered to closely cooperate with other countries and provide information to the public, following reports of swine flu infections in humans in Mexico, the United States, Europe and Oceania, the officials said.... The government will convene a meeting of all Cabinet ministers Monday morning to look into the issue.... The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry received inquiries about the safety of travel to Mexico from 314 people Saturday after it set up a 24-hour telephone consultation service on the disease.... The health ministry will also strengthen its surveillance on direct flights from Mexico by asking all passengers, regardless of whether they show flu symptoms, to provide contact information..... Local public health centers will monitor their conditions for about 10 days to see if there is any sign of swine flu infection..... Quarantine officers continued to use thermographic imaging to check the temperatures of passengers coming from the United States and Mexico to detect signs of flu...... To prepare for confirmation of a new type of influenza by the World Health Organization and raising its alert level from the current phase 3 to 4, the ministry will confirm the amount of flu drug Tamiflu in distribution and secure accommodations near Narita airport to be used for isolating infected people from the general public..... Reflecting public concern about swine flu, JTB Corp. and Hankyu Travel International Co. will cancel their package tours to Mexico.... Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Shigeru Ishiba meanwhile said on a television program Sunday that eating pork poses no danger of being infected...... Pork is sanitized at the shipment stage regardless of whether it is produced domestically or imported, he said......"

[matthew fuller]

Obviously, some countries still have adults in charge of their governments....................

[Brad’s Gramma]

Now THAT sure sounded familiar!!!! LOL :)

Probably heard a poor friend of yours use the phrase when he/she was grounded right? I mean...not YOU! :) You were probably perfect like I was, in every way. *cough*

[Brad’s Gramma]

to be used for isolating infected people from the general public.....

What a concept!

/s

[AmericanInTokyo]

How terrible. Don’t they know that with quarantine and isolation, they risk hurrrrrrrrrting somebody’s feeeeeeeeeelings? How insennnnnnnnsitive. That Japan. Such rampant hate crimes. /sarc

[Brad’s Gramma]

It’s just terrible. Terrible!!

[HiTech RedNeck]

Carriers can stay asymptomatic for what, a week or more?

[Candor7]

The Japan Ministry of Health has the provenance on this virus from WHO. It is a curious genetic mix of swin, human, and avian markers which is highly unlikely to have evolved in nature.Thats the problem.

No one knows what the virus will mutate to next, and it has killed 81 people although the secondary infections in the USA and Canada seem benign. This has people worried.It may be an engineered virus designed to mutate every other generation into something truly horrible.

Avian and Swinie flu are not human diseases, somehow the human marker, swine marker, and avian marker have gotten all into one virus. Very strange indeed.It killed Mexicans quickly, while those getting the secondary infection have only mild flu symptoms.

The Jpanese are quite right to treat this infection strictly. Its origins are highly suspect.

[AmericanInTokyo]

They had the machines out yesterday at Narita (Airport), gateway to Tokyo:

[AmericanInTokyo]

Good information. Correct.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Would highly sophisticated lab techniques be needed? Or just a program to cross inoculate from human to pig to bird round and round until a suitable nasty has been evolved?

[mkjessup]

*cough* *cough* of COURSE. ;)

[AmericanInTokyo]

Check this further:

Friday, Feb. 13, 2009 "(Japan) Pandemic plan calls for mass cremations The Associated Press Japan's plan for any future influenza pandemic calls for shutting down airports, closing schools and organizing mass cremations of the dead in hopes of keeping the virus off its shores or at least containing it. The government plan estimates that a new human flu virus could infect a quarter of the population and force 40 percent of the workforce to stay home. It could cause as many as 640,000 deaths in Japan if it were to spread across the country, the health ministry said Thursday. "It is important to delay as much as possible the virus' entry through measures such as strengthening quarantine to take advantage of the special qualities of our nation as an island nation," it said. Flu pandemics break out when a new virus emerges and sweeps through a population without immunity. The deadliest pandemic on record killed an estimated 40 million people starting in 1918. While there have been no warnings of increased risk this year, flu fears have been stoked in Japan in the wake of hit film "Kansen Retto" ("Infected Archipelago"), which portrays an outbreak that causes death and chaos. The government also held a highly publicized pandemic preparedness drill last month. This week, major electronics maker Panasonic Corp. ordered the families of Japanese overseas employees to return home from developing countries that may be at risk, including China, most parts of Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The company denied the measure was taken to save money. The last influenza pandemic was in 1968, but experts have been closely watching the H5N1 strain of bird flu that has been sweeping poultry flocks worldwide. While that virus remains difficult for people to catch — most of the 254 deaths since 2003 have come from contact with sick birds — experts fear it could mutate into a form that easily spreads among humans. The World Health Organization has called on countries to develop national plans on how to control the virus should it begin to spread among humans. Japan's plan would keep open just four airports and three ports, where a strict quarantine would try to prevent the virus' entry if it emerges overseas. Charter flights would bring healthy Japanese back home, but those infected would be asked to stay abroad and foreigners would be restricted from entry."

[DB]

This flu has an incubation period of something like a week (at least from what I can tell).

Unless these people are quarantined for the incubation period measuring their temperature upon entry to the country isn't going to save the day.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Good!

[Brad’s Gramma]

:)