Getting OUT of Egypt

[wsuffa]

Looks like Japan has joined the "detainment" paranoia... worse than China, Japan is doing 10 days.

The three were among about 390 passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit that arrived Friday.

.....
Public broadcaster NHK TV urged people who were aboard the flight to call a special telephone number for consultations. So far, 49 have been traced and taken to a facility near the airport to be monitored for 10 days, officials said.

Link to Wall Street Journal article from today

Let's see. If Japan detains 390 people, that would amount to 40% of THE ENTIRE NUMBER OF CONFIRMED CASES IN THE US. Sledge hammer, meet fly.

I'm supposed to go to Japan sometime in the next month. I can't afford 10 days of imprisonment if someone gets sick on the plane. Not that the US Embassy will be particularly helpful...

 

[astanley]

Looks like Japan has joined the "detainment" paranoia... worse than China, Japan is doing 10 days.



Link to Wall Street Journal article from today

Let's see. If Japan detains 390 people, that would amount to 40% of THE ENTIRE NUMBER OF CONFIRMED CASES IN THE US. Sledge hammer, meet fly.

I'm supposed to go to Japan sometime in the next month. I can't afford 10 days of imprisonment if someone gets sick on the plane. Not that the US Embassy will be particularly helpful...

The Japanese have always been extra, extra careful about this. In late fall/early winter, they start the pro-active imaging of anyone who presents themselves at the border for entry. (Health quarantine is just before the immigration desks at NRT; they have these huge red cameras and staffers watching you as you walk through the last choke point.) I think this has little to do with swine flu and more to do with the way the Japanese handle international infectious diseases.

 

[gismo]

Let's see. If Japan detains 390 people, that would amount to 40% of THE ENTIRE NUMBER OF CONFIRMED CASES IN THE US. Sledge hammer, meet fly.

From the article you linked:

the three Japanese were quarantined upon arrival in Tokyo after testing positive in preliminary checks performed on all travelers flying from countries hit by the virus

Either I misunderstood your post or you misread the article as the only thing the 390 arriving pax were inconvenienced with was "preliminary checks" which as far as I can tell didn't involve anything like 10 days of detainment.

 

[Dave Krall CFII]

And all the manna you can eat. Baked manna, fried manna, manna fritters, manna pancakes, ba-manna bread ...

Ba-manna bread! Mmmm.

 

[wsuffa]

The Japanese have always been extra, extra careful about this. In late fall/early winter, they start the pro-active imaging of anyone who presents themselves at the border for entry. (Health quarantine is just before the immigration desks at NRT; they have these huge red cameras and staffers watching you as you walk through the last choke point.) I think this has little to do with swine flu and more to do with the way the Japanese handle international infectious diseases.

This goes beyond the routine health screening. Far beyond....

They're coming on planes now, which is OK, but seeking to quarantine an entire planeload is along the same lines as the Chinese quarantining an entire hotel for a week.

From the article you linked:


Either I misunderstood your post or you misread the article as the only thing the 390 arriving pax were inconvenienced with was "preliminary checks" which as far as I can tell didn't involve anything like 10 days of detainment.

I think you missed this:

So far, 49 have been traced and taken to a facility near the airport to be monitored for 10 days, officials said.

Another article noted that those folks were detained/quarantined for 10 days... not just a one-time monitoring.

 

[astanley]

This goes beyond the routine health screening. Far beyond....

They're coming on planes now, which is OK, but seeking to quarantine an entire planeload is along the same lines as the Chinese quarantining an entire hotel for a week.

In principal, I agree with you Bill. But Pragmatic Andrew can't overlook the way that the "SARS"/"Avian Flu" countries have decided to handle these things. On some level, it's a part of the Japanese's collective neuroses around health issues and sanitation in general. To wit, I'm not surprised, I don't expect them to stop, and I don't (in the cultural context, which imperative to consider here) think it is inappropriate.

If we (USA) did such a thing, I'd think this was extreme and uncalled for, given the current information we have. But... the cultural context overrides (for me) in this case.

Cheers,

-Andrew