Currently, the number of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 is increasing across Japan. Three HU students participating in extracurricular activities tested positive for COVID-19. I should imagine that many HU students are getting by every day, feeling worried about the situation. HU would like to maintain in-person lectures as much as possible. However, in case of the onset of a major cluster on campus, we may need to lessen the percentage of them. I would like ask of each HU student to fully comply with the following points as a responsible student of HU so as to ‘not infect oneself’ and ‘not to spread the infection to other people such as one’s friends and family members’ :

1. When you feel ill, do not attempt to come to the campus, but stay at home

If you have one or more of the following symptoms, please self-isolate and make sure to inform that to your family doctor or the doctor’s office in your vicinity, or the nearest Public health Center consultation desk: fever, fatigue, cough, difficulty in breathing, sore threat, headache or smell/taste abnormalities. The self-isolation period lasts until 8 days after the onset of symptoms and until 3 days after symptoms have clear up completely without the use of medicine. Please absolutely make sure not to come to the campus while self-isolating at home.

2. Contact HU’s Health Service Center too!

Please make sure to get in touch your tutor, academic advisor, and Health Service Center if you have been recommended and taken PCR test upon the request from a Public Health Center/doctor’s office, or if you have been informed by them as a person who has been in close contact/contact with a COVID-19 individual (However, you do not need to contact any of the relevant parties at HU if you have taken a PCR test following a notification from the university).

3. How to arrange home delivery of groceries while self-isolating at home

Thanks to the collaboration arrangement between IZUMI Co., Ltd. and HU, it is now possible for any self-isolating individual (be it HU students or faculty/administrative members) to have his/her emergency supply of groceries delivered at home while self-isolating. Please contact the following e-mail address of General Affairs Group (General Affairs Office), should you require the services: soumu@office.hiroshima-u.ac.jp.

4. Avoid 5 situations that increase the risk of infection

Please be even more careful than you have been of the following situations: ‘Social gathering with drinking alcohol’; ‘Long feasts in large groups’; ‘Conversation without a mask’; ‘Living together in a small limited space’; and ‘Switching locations.’

5. Never make any defamatory/slanderous/discriminatory remarks to the individual infected with COVID-19 and the parties concerned, or his/her family members.

It is deemed as a criminal act to defame someone by making defamatory/slanderous/discriminatory remarks on SNS to the individual infected with COVID-19 and the parties concerned, or his/her family members. Such deeds should never be forgiven under any circumstances.

It is essential to share correct information with each other to overcome the challenges from COVID-19 catastrophe.

3rd December 2020 (Reiwa2)
Mitsuo Ochi
President, Hiroshima University