| Thoroughness |
June 18, 2020
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| Recently, he had started shopping at an export food discount shop since the Coronavirus pandemic began. As the time to drink at home had increased, he wanted to make his choices of drink and food vary. The shop had a variety of imported drinks and foods. On this day he was looking at a pack of cream cheese. He liked to eat cream cheese on crackers. He realized that if he bought two packs, there would be a discount. He came up with the idea to buy one for his apartment, and another for his mother's house, because he regularly visited his mother's house for a night or two during the week, so he could eat one there as well. He decided to buy two. As the packs were relatively large, he was able to enjoy the cream cheese for a long time. It was about one month or so after his purchase, when he opened the package of the cream cheese and there was green mold here and there covering the cheese. He was shocked. He carefully took the mold from the surface, but it was deep. He sighed. He should have been more careful how to treat it in this hot season. But, he didn't think he was careless. He started to think about how he ate the cream cheese. He liked to eat a fusion of cream cheese and salsa on a cracker, so maybe he had reused the spoon to take the salsa as well as the cheese. He might have even licked the spoon before reusing it without thinking about it. What a bonehead! On the weekend, he went to his mother's house. When he was going to open the  package of the cream cheese, he became tense. At his mother's house, he ate the cream cheese at almost the same frequency as at his apartment. His mother didn't eat any of it. He opened the top slowly. The cheese was normal, no mold. He was relieved and started to think about why. Why was this one okay but the other not, as he had used both of them almost the same? They were bought on the same day, kept in the fridges the same way, and used by the same person ... But there was no salsa at his mother's house. Maybe his licking the spoon separated the results. This incident reminded him of some of the stories about the coronavirus situations. Even hospitals that had certain strict procedures and disinfectant measures still had some Coronavirus contagion cases. Even nursing homes. Care workers working at nursing homes were very careful and wore masks, cleaned their hands with soap, and cleaned every place with alcohol. Even so, there were some Coronavirus contagion. He watched two cases on TV that were opposite from the hospitals and nursing home situations. One was a Self Defense Force's case. About 5,000 squad members worked on the Diamond Princess Ferry Boat. The Diamond Princess was a boat that became famous about its 3,700 passengers and crew that were quarantined in the boat for more than a month and about 20 % of the people caught the coronavirus. It was from early February to March. As it was at an early stage of the Coronavirus, it gathered people's attention from around the world. 5,000 squad members including medical officers of the SDF worked examining the passengers, disinfecting the rooms, and transporting patients here and there. But there appeared no contamination of the virus to any of the members. They had been trained to deal with these type of situations, including radioactive, biological, and chemical weapons. He watched a video -their protective wear weren't like space suits, just regular nylons clothes, rubber boots, and a mask and googles, not any different from medical workers' in the hospital. The leader of the team explained that the reason they never had a case was that they thoroughly kept to the procedures -how to take off their clothes without touching their hands on the surface of the clothes, how to wear and take off a mask correctly, how to dispose of them without leaking the virus, etc. Later he read that an intellectual suggested that hospitals should ask them and be taught about the procedures and the way of training. The other case was about a cleaning company which specialized in cleaning special places, like places that a dead body would be found after a while, because of sickness, crime, committing suicide, etc. They cleaned infected or/and contaminated places. After the coronavirus happened, some facilities which had suffered from the coronavirus like hotels, restaurants, bars, etc. asked them to disinfect their places. At the company there were no workers who were infected with the coronavirus, so far. On the video, workers were seen working in normal work clothes, they were wearing masks which looked to be sold at regular pharmacies, as well as rubber gloves and rubber boots. They didn't wear special goggles or nylon protectors. The leader said that they paid attention more to cleaning their boots' soles with disinfectant before leaving the facilities. He thought that maybe that this held an important point about the spread of the disease. This is an excerpt of an article that the Bloomberg Newspaper carried on February 1st: "... In an epidemiological twist of fate, the coronavirus's mildness may help it spread undetected until it hits the most vulnerable people. Experts are concerned that it could find a devastating "sweet spot" - mild enough that some patients will go about their normal routines and spread the virus far and wide, triggering an increase in deaths. And if some patients may spread the virus when they have mild or no symptoms at all, as Chinese officials have asserted, that would undercut efforts to halt transmission ..." Maybe we should be more thorough in our daily procedures against this mild but fatal virus. |
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*thoroughness :徹底
*relatively :比較的
*mold :カビ
*lick :なめる
*frequency :頻度
*disinfectant :消毒
*contagion :感染
*quarantine :隔離する
*contamination :汚染
*radioactive :放射能の
*biological :生物の
*dispose :廃棄する
*intellectual :知識人
*specialize :専門とする
*pharmacy :薬屋
*excerpt :抜粋
*carry :掲載する
*epidemiological :疫学の
*twist :ねじれ
*fate : 運命
*undetected :見つからずに
*assert :断言する
*undercut :弱める
*halt : 停止