Japan is a relatively clean and healthy nation with people carrying some of the longest life expectancy in the world. Especially, our friends in Okinawa. However, the long list of positives did not shield the nation from the global fears and troubles from Wuhan’s virus that spread around the world. Up until recently, the death rate for influenza was above that of those who had died with COVID complications. If the numbers are right, the death rate has changed and many people have caught the flu-like virus.
With all the stigma attached to the sickness, many people prefer not to tell others if they got the virus or not. In fact, we heard bosses deny any sickness in their ranks, only to have their players admit to getting sickness at the office. Several people got sick on our team, therefore we learned directly what to expect with the Corona virus. Here are the ten things our team learned from the Corona illness.
- If you get Corona virus in your organization, never blame anyone. It’s really hard to determine where it originated from. Besides, it just makes for bad feelings amongst your team if you allow a witch hunt.
- If you’re sick, stay out of the office.
- Masks weren’t effective from us. The first people who got sick were our most dedicated ‘maskers’. A company doctor said the ONLY really effective mask is the N95. But besides being impractical, it’s extremely uncomfortable for 8 hours a day.
- Remember the big three- eat natural, get regular exercise, and get 8 hours of sleep. Staying healthy reduces your chance of getting sick as your immune system is strong and can better rebuff it. We saw the difference within our teams.
- The Biggest Hits- In our case, high risk people got worse symptoms than others. Former smokers, those working too much and not getting rested up, and those who were overly stressed. People in these area got hit a bit harder than the others who got sick
- The local governments were a bit too quick to hospitalize people that were better off just to recover at home. This may be part of what caused the hospital crowding issues. People were there that didn’t need to be (like we experienced), and others with complications couldn’t get in…
- There is a stigma on COVID and most people deny they ever got it for fear of being ostracized.
- Life will never be risk free. Of course keeping things clean helps immensely, but there is a lot more than just corona floating around out there. So don’t be afraid to get out and refresh your senses outside with your family and friends.
- Stay positive and healthy. If you’re fearful and anxious, sickness can hit you harder.
- Getting the real thing is more effective than any injections. (In Japan, when children get the mumps, parents sometimes take their healthy kids around the sick kids so everyone can get it once and build their immunity naturally when they’re young… mumps shots eventually wear off)
For our team members, Corona was highly contagious. The good news is no one died. The illness was more like a pneumonia as it tended to hit the lungs. Those who got it had a dry cough, some had headaches for a day or so, and a couple people were hospitalized. Some were hospitalized against their will and others who really needed the intravenous drip ‘IV’ to get fluids into their bodies. Whenever someone gets sick, lots of clear fluids are essential, after all, our bodies are mostly water.
How Will It All Pan Out?
From our corona experience, we expect the virus and all that happened in 2020 and early 2021 will all be remembered mostly as an overreaction for in many things. AINEO has Japan’s fastest growing internet-based phone service that is a must have tool for this generation of professionals. Out of an abundance of caution, it was easy to immediately send everyone home for a few weeks as we’ve got all the tools to work from home (or anywhere) with CIRCLE Cloud Communications. We hope our company experience was helpful to you and hope you will stay BQF (bright, quick, and flexible) like our fantastic teams around Asia. If you need to figure out how to work from anywhere, drop us a line here!