OSAKA — In Kobe and Osaka, as well as in Tokyo, shocked officials dealing with the outbreak of swine flu had more or less the same reaction Sunday as Kansai Okura High School principal Takaharu Miyanomae.
"None of the students had ever been abroad. So we never thought that this was the new virus," Miyanomae told reporters after announcing students at his school had tested positive for the new H1N1 virus.
Reports that dozens of people in the Kansai region were infected despite never having been abroad has destroyed the attitude that Japan was somehow immune to a domestic outbreak as long as passengers arriving from overseas, especially North America, were checked carefully.