As a current applicant I’m curious for those currently in the JET program: what kind of illness mitigation is still in place in your schools? Obviously ESID, however do teachers/students wear masks/are allowed to wear masks? Do they open windows in classrooms for ventilation? Etc.
In my area of the US the dropping of mitigation practices from the pandemic has led to lots of students and teachers being out sick recently due to a mix of the flu and covid.
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Most of Japanese society is still wearing masks even though the government has said it’s not needed outside. But indoors you’ll still see signs, intercom messages about keeping masks on.
Schools (Tokyo experience only) still require masks, but the idea of hard social distancing has relaxed. My school occasionally opens the windows for ventilation, but that’s often dictated by how cold my students are/get.
The flu however, lol. Pre-pandemic, you could get entire classes canceled during flu season as half the class and the homeroom teacher will catch it, so the rest of the students get sent home as well. I was a JET in a JH/SH and one year we had 3 full classes (~108 students) absent because they either had the flu or were sent home because of their classmates all having it. But during that time, no one really took special precautions for the flu to prevent its spread, just reactionary measures.
Masks STILL on. Windows STILL open. Kids STILL getting sick daily.
Open windows and masks. Masks were normal before the pandemic; they’re not going away anytime soon.
Kids and teachers come to school sick, only if it’s severe enough do they stay home. Entire classes will be sniffing and sneezing and hacking away. Covid testing has been relaxed a lot too.
One kid will get Covid in class, be absent the next day, the rest of the class continues on just hoping no one else got it.
As other mentioned, COVID measures are still in effect at my school. When 1-4 students in a class get Covid, class goes on as usual. If 5 or more in a class get COVID, the class shuts down and goes online for a week.
Recently, two classes got shut down in my school and are online. One class had 9 infections and the other had exactly 5. Both come back this coming Monday.
Still wearing masks and windows are still open. Similar restrictions with students online if there are multiple cases. My school is hyper vigilant.
I was sent home because I was getting sleepy at my desk and one of the other teachers thought I might be sick. I was told to monitor my temp and any possible symptoms over the weekend. Came back Monday no problems.
(Thankfully this was a Friday. Otherwise, I would have been required to take nenkyu. ALSO, my supervising teacher told me that whenever I visit the US this summer to see family and I’m possibly short a day because of this, she would go in and delete the half-day absence since it wasn’t really my fault but she had to record t in the meantime. She’s so nice!)
Not only are you allowed to wear masks, there’s a close to 100% chance you’ll be required to in schools. Still, lots of kids get sick because masks aren’t perfect and social distancing in a classroom is difficult. The most students I’ve had missing at one time from one class is 4, but it’s fairly common for entire to classes to be cancelled at other schools in my city, whether it be due to COVID or the flu.
Everyone in my school still wears masks. There are hand sanitizer stations everywhere.
Right now, we’re having a large wave of COVID cases after the winter break (and an unlucky badminton tournament, apparently). When that happens, we air out the staff room once an hour. We’ve never shut down a class, as far as I know; students who are sick just do HW at home and can video call with teachers.
I think students and teachers are also still required to report their temperature every day; however, I don’t do this because I find it tedious (the app is awful) and I am just bad at that stuff. If I have a high temp, I just tell someone…. #gaijincard
Basically, anyone who has a temp over like, 37 degrees Celsius is sent home. If you have a sore throat and headache, you are also advised to go home; my school sends you home with 2 at-home COVID tests and won’t let you back til both are negative (with 2 days between). If you test positive, you’re home for 10 days (or until you test negative).
Everyone wears masks.
Windows are always cracked a few inches / are half open. Yes, it gets cold.
That’s it, basically. Nobody is really stressing, tons more kids are absent though in the past week, compared to normal.
My school does everything from wearing masks to opening windows and just this week two of my classes were out completely not coming back til next Monday 😅. Apparently it’s a mix of both Covid and Influenza but I asked one of the 担任先生’s and their class in particular had a lot of influenza cases and suggested I get the flu shot.
Masks everywhere except outside. Windows open (which naturally creates sick kids lol) and there are sim Covid cases.
It’s kind of annoying and I’m ready to go back to normal but hey, shoganai.
The kids getting sick at my school at the ones who keep taking their masks off and refuse to wear them. We’ve had some outbreaks here and there and I’ve yet to see anyone who actually wears their shit come down with a case. Still got my unbroken never-caught-it streak going as well.