Today in class, one of my classmates asked the teacher if it seemed like Keio University was going to close. My teacher responded that she didn’t know. I thought maybe my classmate was talking about the upcoming baseball game since in many cases, classes at Keio University are cancelled when we play our rival, Waseda University. In any case, I wasn’t really sure what she was talking about so I promptly forgot it as we moved on into class.
This evening, after eating chuuka soba and gyoza for dinner at a place near my dorm that I eat at often, one of the guys who works there asked me if I still had classes. I said, yes, and he went on to explain that a lot of universities were closing down due to some word that I didn’t understand. As he continued his explanation, I realized he must be talking about some sort of disease. He advised me to check out the news.
So, of course, when I returned to my room, I searched on google for “japan university outbreak” and came across this article: Measles outbreak forces Japanese university to cancel classes. Apparently, a couple days ago, Keio University’s rival, Waseda University, decided to close all campuses for nine days because 30 students have contracted measles. Additionally, five other universities in Tokyo: Chuo, Komazawa, Nihon, Seikei and Sophia have also closed because of this.
I wish Keio University had decided to shut down, too. It would have been nice to have been greeted with an unexpected nine day vacation! I suppose if the “outbreak” continues, Keio may decide to shut down but I have the feeling that if it hasn’t at this point, it’s not going to.
I wasn’t sure if I had gotten the measles vaccine or not, so I called home and asked my Dad. Luckily, I did get it so I suppose I don’t have to worry as much. I think the measles vaccine is reported to be 99% effective in people who receive it.
Some interesting facts about measles that I didn’t know until I read the article I linked to above are:
“Measles was the world’s single most lethal infectious disease before an effective vaccine emerged in 1963.
In the early 1960s, as many as 135 million cases of measles occurred each year around the world, six million of them fatal.”
Six million fatal cases of measles every year is a pretty significant number! I had no idea that it was this high and it wasn’t even that long ago, either.
For now, I guess I’ll just have to see what happens here in Tokyo and hope I don’t contract measles!