Re: [sumo] Asashouryuu obliged to undergo SARS check-up

[Doreen Simmons <jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp>]

At 5:18 PM +0300 6/6/03, moti wrote:
> Yokozuna Asashouryuu has been asked to undergo a SARS check-up upon his 
> return from Mongolia, where he has met his two month old daughter for the 
> first time.


Unless his flight was via Beijing or some other place designated by the WHO 
as having SARS, this was unnecessary. Mongolia has had a total of ten 
cases, all several weeks ago (and all traceable to Beijing), and a rigorous 
WHO inspection resulted in removal of the advisory as the Mongolian 
authorities were deemed to have taken adequate steps to contain the 
infection.  They intend to keep it that way, too. When our (direct 
Narita-Ulaan Baatar) flight landed in UB, three be-goggled women clad from 
head to underfoot in white came checking our health declarations, just 
inside immigration there was a man carefully training a heat-sensitive 
camera on every passenger's face,  and when we claimed our baggage it was 
still dripping from a disinfectant spray.  They're right, of course; Japan 
was far more likely to have a SARS outbreak than Mongolia, which has only 
three entry points into the country and is watching them closely. The 
problem with Japan, of course, is that people don't know their geography 
and confuse Mongolia the country with Inner Mongolia, a part of China, 
which has indeed had a bad outbreak of SARS. They are separated by a vast 
expanse of desert but a lot of Japanese tend to assume that all the rest of 
Asia is third-world and not to be trusted.

> Two  Sandanme Mongolians, Daionji and Daibanjaku, have already returned 
> from their trip and presented the Kyoukai with negative check-up 
> results.Kitanoumi Rijichou.


Yup. They were on the same plane as my group. I had a pleasant chat with 
them in the Departure Lounge.

FWIW.



~Doreen Simmons
     <jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp>~
[EndPost by Doreen Simmons <jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp>]