Quarantined? Are you serious?

Today's topic is over-reacting. Our example of over-reacting? The government of Japan.

Here is the scenario: I am on a Boeing 747 en route to Okinawa, via the Narita airport in Tokyo. I like to make "tight" connections, since I generally don't check any baggage, and I just flat move faster than most air travelers. Anyway, we touch down at Narita and taxi to our gate. This is where it starts to get crazy.

Along with our obligatory customs declarations, every passenger got a medical survey. It was a pointless piece of paper because half of it was filled with identifying information which was the exactly same information required on the other two forms I had to fill out. The rest of it was making sure that I didn't have a vacation home in Mexico.

So back to the story: Our plane was quarantined. Every plane is quarantined. We were "boarded" by Health Officials (10 humanoid-shaped beings) completely protected by blue hospital gowns, gloves, masks and goggles. I was given a mask by the flight attendant so that in the event I had to speak to one of the Health Officials (HOs) they would be protected from my bacteria-filled spittle which would undoubtedly fly at the first fumbled consonant.

The first HO approached me with an oversized polaroid camera that took my temperature from 3 feet away. And good thing too. I hadn't put on my mask yet and we all know how hard it is to control that spittle. Apparently my heat profile was within acceptable limits because the HO shuffled down the aisle, being careful not to get close to anyone that hadn't been measured yet.

Next came a pair of HOs. The first one had the important job of making sure that I had filled in all of the blank lines on my survey. You may be wondering how you can get an education that will let you fill such an important position in society, but don't forget about the second HO of the pair. His job was to hand me the yellow paper saying that I had been screened. If only I had gone to Health Official school.

Yep, that was the end of the screening. An hour later, after they had hand counted over 400 forms (Our plane was missing two forms so they had to come through and verify that we all had our yellow paper) we were allowed to deplane. Now, I am not a Health Official or anything, but from what I understand, most people who get the Swine Flu actually recover. And we lose thousands to the regular flu every year. I am thinking that they are slightly over-reacting.

And what was the cost? Not much compared to the massive health risk averted by such close and careful screening. I only missed the last flight of the day to Okinawa from Narita and had to buy a $30 bus ticket to get to the Haneda airport in time to catch the last plane to Okinawa. That has to be worth it, right? And the fact that this must happen to multiple travelers on every flight (they have special quarantine delay fliers for you when you miss your connection) wouldn't add up to a cost greater than the benefit. Or would it?