A nearby supermarket was much more crowded than expected when my wife and I went there Saturday morning for essential shopping. An insensitive mother and her daughter, not wearing masks, were standing in the middle of a sidewalk talking to each other and blocking the passage of pedestrians.
During a visit to care for my 92-year-old mother living alone in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Sunday, the whole city was not so crowded but a narrow street leading a famous shrine was still packed with tourists. Although I don’t intend to generalize, such experiences over the first weekend after the government declared a state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic were scary.
My full sympathy goes to the political leaders in Tokyo and elsewhere in the world. Selfish and capricious citizens don’t obey the advice of proud but evasive epidemiologists who despise and remind politicians — more concerned about the economy — that medicine must override politics.