Japanese Title (邦題)： 「産直マスク？！」末尾に
Directly delivered surgical mask?!
Good morning to the World and Kanmon!
When I was moving by a car, one unique hand-written sign board caught my eyes. At first, I thought it was a sign board for fruits or crabs direct from the producer*. Soon I found out it is a sign board for selling surgical masks.
And its price seemed to be quite expensive. I wondered if those were masks once bought up for re-sale purpose but couldn’t be sold before the delivery regulation became more strict.
(*On local road in Japan, fruits and seafoods directly from producer are sold on the street with hand-written sign board within about 500 meters this side of the sales stand.)
By the way, I keep seeing surgical masks on the shelves of supermarket in this town in the past few days. Price of them are also expensive than used to be.
In the first place, when surgical masks got disappeared from Japanese market. News commentators blamed somebody who bought them up for re-sale, but I don’t think that is the right answer.
It was about the end of January, when we started worrying about this year’s pollen allergy. That time, TV news started reporting about serious infection in WUHAN. A little later, Japanese news focused about binge shopping of masks by tourists from a certain country. About same timing, some of our guests taught us that surgical mask is cheap but quite good souvenir to bring back. So I decided to buy masks for pollen a little earlier than usual years. Just after I bought them, stock of mask disappear from every market.
If such tourists will buy surgical masks and other important materials in future, it is no use our government will keep some stock for emergency. We hope that our government will consider such scenario carefully before making action for effective measure against possible infection in future.
Thank you and you have a nice day without any worries with enough preparation.
from Yassan,
Manager of a Little Guesthouse under a Little Lighthouse TOUKA
( http://touka-kanmon.com )
産直マスク？！
世界中に朝が、そして関門にもあさが来ました。
おはようございます。
車で移動していると、ある手書きのかんばんに目がとまりました。旬の果物とかカニの産直販売の看板かと思ったら、よくみると「マスクの販売」のようです。
それも結構お高い！もしかして規制前にさばき切れなかった買い占めマスクかも？
（日本ではよく田舎の国道で産直品の路肩販売をしていて、こんな風に手書き看板が手前500mぐらいからいくつか置かれています。）
そういえば、ここ数日スーパーでもマスクを見るようになりました。で、同様に高いです。
そもそもなぜこんなにマスクが入手しづらくなったのでしょう？転売目的の買い占めが責められていましたが、自分は違うと思います。
花粉が気になり始めた１月末、武漢での感染が話題になりはじめ、それに少し遅れてある国からの観光客が日本でマスクを爆買いしているというニュースが報道され、時同じくして当宿のゲストも「とても喜ばれる、安くて良いお土産なんだよね」と言っていたのを聞いて、花粉症に備えて購入したことを思い出しました。その後すぐに棚からマスクが消えました。
今後も特定の国からの旅行客が、大量買いする状況が起これば、いくら備蓄しても不足してしまうと事態は避けられないと思います。政府にはそうしたことも視野に入れて、未来の感染症対策を考えてほしいですね。
それでは、備えあれば憂いなしの素敵な一日を！
灯台下のちいさいゲストハウス「灯火」宿主 やっさん より
( http://touka-kanmon.com )
