Japan to close schools nationwide to control spread of virus | Hacker News Reader

Japan to close schools nationwide to control spread of virus

apnews.com

88 pointsjonbaer19 comments

It's worth pointing out that the Japanese school system's schedule is rotated more towards the beginning of the year from where the US schedule is. They're about to go on their long break, which we usually have in summer they have in spring. So for many students they would be on break starting next week and wouldn't be back in school until April. This just moves that schedule up a bit. The big question that's being asked is, "Will this clear up by April, and if it doesn't?"

Source: My wife works for a non-profit high-school & university level Japanese study abroad program.

By April, the new American study on using an existing antiviral drug against Coronavirus should have produced results. So with a bit of luck, they'll have a known good treatment method by then.

Japanese fiscal and school year ends/starts 31st March/starts April 1st rather than 31 Aug/1 Sep. In a three semester school year, 1st semester is from Apr-Aug, 2nd from Sep-Dec, 3rd from Jan-Mar. This will cut short 1/3 of the third.

Active discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22432233

Obvious response to this rn in the country is "but parents has jobs, especially healthcare workers, the fuck are you thinking"

At least some households are wealthy and fortunate enough to have a full-time parent. In any case, even if both parents have to work, they won't be working for long if their little germ bus picks it up at the local germ exchange...

Can the government of Japan not apply pressure on their companies to accommodate parents?

Japan isn't China, the government can apply about as much pressure as the US government could. The Japanese will be free to mitigate the impact of this virus however they see fit.

You think the US government doesn't have the authority to call for a state of emergency and enact a general curfew?

I thought part of this is about something like all parents of a household work and there isn’t spare money. So how is the child staying at home taken care of. A general curfew would I assume mean you still go to work. Or did you mean a Curfew of you can’t leave your house unless you have permission at all, 24/7?

Legal authority is nothing without the ability to enforce it.

That one would make it about five seconds before SCOTUS threw it out. The US Government really does not have that authority.

They would have a holiday either way in a week. This doesn't really change anything.

Pretty spot on, a hospital in Hokkaido has to stop taking in new patients due to nurses having to take leave to care for their children.

Source (jap): https://www3.nhk.or.jp/sapporo-news/20200227/7000018387.html

It says they even closed a whole section of the building, and there are cases of patients being asked to accept postponed hospitalization dates.

But there is a bit more to the story: that hospital is also the only one in the region designated for handling infectious disease outbreaks, and so in the face of the staff shortage, they are also planning to have the capacity to respond to cases of the virus.

Mothers in Japan generally are not employed.

The thinking is probably that a healthy kid at home is better than one with COVID-19.

What does a parent job have to do with this? Can't kids older than 7 stay home and feed themselves?

You obviously don't have kids.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com