#multi-post

I saw someone else speaking of their discovery of Trigun: Stampede and how it helped them through the year and only glossed over it. However, this anime was important to me this year. Trigger warnings: Death, grief, mourning, suicidal ideation and the fact that this was a generally shitty year. Personal stuff. Heartwarming "warning": Healing, reconciliation and a touch of nostalgia.

7 different emote samples for Twitch users to inaugurate my gig on Fiverr! https://www.fiverr.com/unnatural20

Unfortunately for those of us in Japan, accurate information on COVID19 and the domestic rate of infection is hard to come by. There’s lots of misinformation because the national government refuses to be transparent with the public. The LDP has cited concerns related to the economy and the Olympics (???) and seem perfectly happy to blame infection rates within the country on Chinese tourists even as they neglect proper monitoring and testing of likely exposed people within the country. On the bright side, the private sector is encouraging telecommuting and schools have been closed until the beginning of April.

For our followers who may have relatives back Japan who only speak Japanese and are thoroughly panicking, I highly recommend forwarding them this FAQ produced by the Hawaiian state health department in Japanese. Hopefully, other municipalities in the US with Japanese speaking populations will upload similar information in the coming weeks.

While working alongside my friend http://twitch.tv/cuttinkstudio yesterday I put together 4 different twitch emotes (28x28 icons) including a piece mirroring a challenge piece featuring “lots of eyes, and teeth”.

Hi guys! If you are like me and you happen to study epidemiology while keeping an ear to Japanese and American twitter, you’ll notice that there are an awful lot of racist things being said about China and Asian people because of the novel coronavirus (aka COVID19, formerly 2019-nCov).

As a person who studies disease with a background in sociology, it’s depressingly normal for epidemics to be used as a cover for people to casually voice their xenophobia, racism and general bigotry under the guise of being a member of the concerned public (Ex. The travel ban imposed by President Trump in the US against foreign nationals coming from China, despite the WHO’s statement that this is not necessary and the consensus among health experts that such a move will hurt our response efforts or the Japanese government’s recent decision to void South Korean university applicants’ test scores and invalidate 2.8 million Chinese visas).

Here at wearejapanese, I think it’s fair to say we are not about that. Also, for me, part of my obligations as a Japanese person include stepping up and not being a bigoted douchebag to China. Our sympathies go to people in China who are suffering, and we applaud the efforts of healthcare providers and researchers working to help treat people and reduce the disease’s spread.

I think it’s also important to note that as we look at more recent trends in international transmission of the disease (per WHO situation reports), the Japanese Ministry of Health and Labor thoroughly botched the country’s handling of outbreak onboard the Diamond Princess Cruise ship in Yokohama several weeks ago. Within the United States, the Trump administration’s sloppy management of the CDC and failure to come up with a national plan in a timely manner has hampered America’s ability to survey, test and diagnose. Make no mistake, in this era of isolationist politics, no government is going to come out of this story looking good. In order to not overwhelm everyone with a giant wall of text, this thing is spread out over a series of 5 posts.

Handwashing remains one of the best forms of disease prevention. Bleach-based cleaning products like many household wipes are useful for surface cleaning for surfaces that are more likely to have high concentrations of viruses. These include doors, handles, toilet and bathroom fixtures and personal items like smart phones, computers, keyboards and controllers. However, in terms of reducing your risk to contracting COVID19 (and, more importantly, preventing you from spreading it to others), vigorous hand washing for 20 sec (In American hospitals, we are taught to sing the first line of “Happy Birthday”), proper hand drying followed with application of a hand sanitizer is likely to be more effective. It is also very important to minimize touching your eyes, nose and mouth whenever possible. This is because most viruses cannot survive outside the body for more than a couple hours. Cleaning your hands is not about killing the virus, but rather about the physical process of rubbing and rinsing, thus removing the virus from your skin's surface so in the event you do touch your nose, mouth, eyes, or any other exposed mucous membranes, you are less likely to have stuff on your hands that could infect you.

What is the incubation period? 2 weeks max.

Who is getting sick? This disease affects some segments of the population more than others: The elderly and immunocompromised (i.e., Anyone with a health condition or lifestyle factor that would make it harder for their bodies to fight off infections). One of the few saving graces about COVID19 is that unlike influenza, most young children do not seem to become seriously ill even if infected (Hence why closing schools is being proposed in many parts of the world. Children would be able to easily transmit the disease to adults despite showing no symptoms). Many people who are healthy will instead experience something not unlike a bad cold or flu, but people who are more vulnerable run the risk of developing pneumonia as a result of a serious infection. However, compared to other densely populated countries, China’s population skews much older, which is part of why the disease is more of a problem for their healthcare system. You’ll notice the mortality for this disease is quite low, but the severe infection rate is quite high.  It’s not that COVID19 is unusually deadly, but that more people in China who have contracted it thus far were very vulnerable to developing and dying from pneumonia.

So why are we worried? Well, this disease affects people who will likely need acute medical care and/or people who already need receive medical care. That burdens the medical infrastructure of most regions (Aka surge capacity). Because COVID19 is a new disease, we don’t know which treatments work the best, aside from treating pneumonia  with oxygen masks and ventilators and providing antivirals that we think may work). In short, we won’t be able to treat large numbers of people rapidly. Most patients can be treated effectively in a medical setting, but if a hospital with 200 open beds suddenly has to treat 300 people, that’s difficult. We also are concerned about asymptomatic infections (wherein a person doesn’t seem or feel sick, but is infected, and thus continues with their normal routine), which might result in a more vulnerable person falling sick (i.e. community transmission).