Aug 11 2020
To begin
1. To take fundamental infection control measures thoroughly
2. To avoid "3 Cs"
3. Notes on using restaurants
4. Extracurricular activities
5. Taking a trip/traveling
6. Others
To end
The first semester is about to be over. During the first semester, starting on April 20, Niigata University conducted non-face-to-face classes in terms of preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19). I suppose you all students must have been very confused during the first semester by this situation, which we have never experienced before. Especially for the first-year students, I'm concerned whether they have been extremely uneasy as the campus life they had awaited began with a lot of restriction. I firstly would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to your cooperation and effort.
As you all know, the situation regarding COVID-19 infection in Japan is that a nationwide state of emergency was announced in April, requesting people to quarantine themselves, fortunately leading to a stable situation in the end of May. Then, Niigata University resumed some face-to-face classes starting in middle of June in the second term of the first semester for certain experimental/laboratory subjects with taking thorough infection control measures. COVID-19 infection in Japan, however, has gradually spread again mainly in Tokyo since the end of June. Japan recorded a daily increase in confirmed cases of more than 1,000 by the end of July, and now has confirmed more than four million cases. COVID-19 has frequently spread in other parts of Japan, including Niigata; five of our students traveling to Osaka were confirmed to be positive for COVID-19 in the end of July.
When one person is infected, there are usually dozens of people at the risk of infection, including close contacts. In case of these five students, they took non-face-to-face classes, and we grasped their records of actions promptly. We also temporarily closed some of our facilities, such as the library and cafeterias just in case. As a result, all of the close contacts were tested negative, and could prevent secondary infection. I think this case made us realize the COVID-19 infection could happen to anyone and each of us must be responsible for our behavior to prevent further spread of infection.
As you all must be aware, daily confirmed cases reflect the spread of infection from one or two weeks ago, not the current situation. People infected with COVID-19 develop fever or cold symptoms, such as cough, shortness of breath, and fatigue, about three to five days after contacting patients, and take PCR test to confirm infection. This means confirmed cases in a week or two will reveal your current situation. When you look at the current number of patients from this point of view, Japan is now in a fairly severe situation, and you can easily imagine the number of cases will steadily increase without taking any measures.
There is no specific medicine or vaccine for COVID-19. Therefore, each country has been making enormous efforts to develop vaccine. Although some countries have succeeded to develop vaccine, saying that it is to be available in the autumn, I think a vaccine, which is effective, and has no side-effects, will be developed around next summer at the earliest in reality taking account of experience and opinions from experts up to now. Until then, you should prepare yourself for the prolonged crisis of COVID-19.
Under these circumstances, your summer vacation will begin. On the other hand, various kinds of information are overflowing on SNS, and I'm concerned that you might be confused about what guideline you should follow.
Here, I will tell you what to do for spending the upcoming summer in the situation where COVID-19 infection has spread. As I told you before, the basics are:
(i) Take care not to get infected yourself.
(ii) Always keep in mind that you might be infected yourself, and be careful not to infect others or create clusters.
In particular, 80% of people with COVID-19 have mild illness as a whole, and it is possible that you may transmit the virus to others before you know it. Especially when young people get infected, they often have no symptoms or end up with mild illness. If you think easily that you will have only mild illness even if you get infected, you may help the infection spread and pose a risk to people around you, especially the elderly and people with chronic diseases. Keeping that in mind, please note the following.
COVID-19 infections are caused by droplet or contact infection.
(i) Preventing droplet infection: It is important to keep a distance from others and wear a mask. Then please keep a social distance and wear a mask while having a conversation, but you don't always need to wear a mask during hot summer days. It's not necessary to wear a mask when you walk outdoors alone in hot weather, and wearing a mask while jogging is rather dangerous. Remember to act with keeping a distance from others because it's unlikely that you get infected simply by passing each other.
It's needless to say that you have to wear a mask when you enter stores.
(ii) Preventing contact infection: Contact infection is an unexpected blind spot. Since tables, doorknobs, and handrails in public places are prone to contact infections, try not to touch them as much as possible.
You, however, can't avoid touching straps on trains or seats on buses. You don't get infected immediately by touching those as you hardly get infected from the skin of your hands. The problem is that you touch or rub your face, nose, or eyes with your hands.
Therefore, you don't need to be afraid of straps or handrails more than necessary. More importantly, avoid touching your nose, mouth, and eyes with your hands, sanitize your hands frequently, and wash your hands with soap after going out.
In the sense of avoiding droplet infections, "Closed spaces with poor ventilation", "Crowded places with many people nearby", and "Close-contact settings such as close-range conversations" are all dangerous. Then I would like to ask you not to create or to avoid any of these conditions.
You can't help taking off your mask at pubs or izakaya. Especially when you drink alcohol, you talk loudly and spray your droplets. Contact infections are likely to occur by scattered salvia and tongs shared by everyone even if you don’t drink from one glass being passed around. Therefore, we strictly prohibit part-time work at such places.
Eating and drinking in a group can cause a cluster infection. Please refrain from holding drinking parties, such as parties with your classmates or colleagues including in dormitories and apartment building.
You may have to go to restaurants for having meals even though you don't go to izakaya. Some local governments put infection control stickers on restaurants, but actual situation is what matters. It's significant to see and make sure on your own.
For example, check the following as a guide:
(1) Ventilating restaurants properly by opening windows and doors or using ventilators.
(2) Maintaining a space between other customers: spacious private rooms, a space of two meters or more from other customers' tables, a partition between next tables, or a limited number of customers for maintaining a space.
(3) Not too noisy: to avoid loud conversations.
(4) Disinfecting seats and tables for each customer.
(5) Setting hand sanitizers before and after entering a restaurant.
(6) Having employees wear a mask
You should basically avoid eating and drinking with more than one person. Please ask the restaurant to arrange the seats so that even company don't sit closely to each other in case you have to eat with a few people. It's always important to think for yourselves and judge the situation.
Niigata University has asked students to report notification with thinking of infection control measures to resume extracurricular activities with restrictions. Thus, I would like you to observe infection control rules that you have set up yourselves, and to pay special attention to infection risks.
Please note that contact infections tend to occur not only during club activities, but in changing rooms for sports as an unspecified number of people may use lockers even if it's not closed space. You need to have this kind of perspective.
You can travel across prefectures after a state of emergency was lifted. However, you are now required to fully understand the current situation about COVID-19 infection and take action understanding the infection risk.
It's been controversial whether people should come home during Obon holidays, but traveling itself is not bad. It's difficult to stay still at home in the summer. In that regard, I would like you to decide what to do with keeping in mind that you don't get infected or let others infected.
Basic points about traveling are as follows:
(i) To play meticulous attention when traveling outside the prefecture
(ii) Not to travel in a group of four or more including a travel with members of club activities
Regarding (i), it's crucial to take infection control measures during traveling, to grasp the situation about the infection in your destiny, and to avoid places with risks. It's also necessary to consider whether you may infect others in your destination.
You can come up with many other things that you should be aware of to avoid infections other than above mentioned.
For instance, close contact with people coming from outside the prefecture can increase the risk of infection. That is, a typical case is class reunions often held during Obon holidays. You should keep this perspective in mind when returning home for Obon or meeting people who have returned home. Furthermore, it makes such problems more serious that moving from a prefecture with a large number of infected people to a prefecture with a small number of infected people. You should consider that one infected person joining the family can lead to family infection.
When it comes to a relationship with your family, it's important that you don't get infected so you don't bring infection to protect your family. You also need to make handwashing a habit, and always remain careful to some extent about having meals at home.
I encourage you install COVID-19 Contact-Confirming Application (COCOA) provided by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on your smartphone. It may be useful for knowing the risks when the number of infected people increases around you.
Torahiko Terada, known for a physicist, an essayist and a haiku poet, said "To fear properly." This is a phrase from the essay "Two Small Eruptions." The author who encountered the eruption of Mt. Asama said, "It's easy to fear too much or too little, but it is hard to fear properly." by looking at the student coming down from the mountain and saying, "It’s nothing, everything is all right," and the climbers headed for the mountain without caring about it.
I would like you all to spend a great summer with discipline and regulation being alert with unfounded confidence, not being anxious unnecessarily by developing the ability to see and identify the facts. In the autumn, there is a great possibility that a larger wave of COVID-19 infection may occur with the flu. Therefore, in the second semester, we will offer non-face-to-face classes mainly but we can live through difficult times together with our teachers aiming to create more attractive classes by taking advantage of the experience of the first semester.
If you have any problems, please contact your academic advisor or Student Affairs Office of your Faculty/Graduate School first. If you are unable to do so, or have any concerns financially or mentally, feel free to contact "COVID-19 Emergency Student Support Desk" "or "Consultation Counters". Of course, you can talk to someone you trust or your friends. And on the other hand, I would like you to arouse your intellectual curiosity and have a fulfilling summer even in this situation.
USHIKI Tatsuo, MD, PhD
President
