English: At first the pandemic of Covid 19 did not seem to produce large numbers of sick people in Japan. But locally hard-hit places have been setting forth voluntary orders for self-quarantining around the country ('stay home, stay safe'), culminating on April 7 with the Prime Minister making a public statement to fit that reality: Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Osaka, Hyogo, Fukuoka are now under a state of emergency. Fukui is not included. However, including 6 more new cases today, Fukui is the worst now, in terms of per capita confirmed infections. The local news media described the chain of transmission this way: The president of the Nikka Kagaku company was the first case, and then people who dined together at Katamachi [entertainment district in Fukui-city], and then their families, and so one. There are some cases that can not be traced back to any of the previous cases, though.

This photo comes from the west side of Echizen-city, an old castle-town in the north half of Fukui prefecture in rural west Japan. Normally there would be school groups, elderly, families, couples, and individuals passing under the blossoms along the path, or stopping to sit and watch the petals fall. Some especially majestic trees on the grounds of Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines arrange lights to shine into the branches at night for added visual interest and to attract visitors. But the global virus transmission that can lead to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has restricted public activities like that. "Social distancing" has been the most effective, if rudimentary, technique for breaking the transmission path of water droplets exhaled, coughed, or sneezed into the air.

Photo credit: Ms. Kiyomi Saito.

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