Kirk here. Recently, my university told me to check out the following page, which has an official announcement about measures we should be taking to deal with the latest and most contagious flavor of COVID-19: BA.5. Here’s the page:

https://www.pref.kumamoto.jp/soshiki/30/145891.html

The site provides machine translations into English and other languages. Here’s the URL for the English:

https://www.pref.kumamoto.jp.e.qp.hp.transer.com/soshiki/30/145891.html

But this particular link is pretty much useless because, in addition to the usual poor quality of the translation, most of the information is provided via JPG images, which are not translated.

To save you the time of trying to read the tiny text (another problem), or trying to get help with it if your Japanese is not at that level, I’ll give you a brief summary: Be careful.

Ah, maybe that was a bit TOO brief but that’s the message in a nutshell. It’s not a matter of being forbidden to do A or B. Rather, there’s a list of what, by this point, have become common-sense measures for reducing the risk of spreading the disease.

There’s also something about free testing at Kumamoto Station but – sigh — no details and no link to a site with more information. Alas, an example of the sort of poor communication that I have found to be quite common on Kumamoto Prefecture’s website: In order to actually be able to USE information we need to be give a complete explanation or a link to one – not just a tantalizing headline.

Another example of poor communication is the QR codes you see (if you can see them) in the image I’m sharing. I found that the original image is 1,280 pixels wide and on that image the QR codes can be read by my phone. However, on the website itself the images are shrunk to less than half size, rendering the QR codes useless. Moreover, THIS A WEB PAGE, NOT A PIECE OF PAPER. Forgive me for shouting, but I get emotional about this stuff. If you are handing out a piece of paper and only expect people receiving the piece of paper to want to use a phone to find out more information, then, OK, a QR code is best. But, even on a smart phone, a QR code doesn’t work unless you have something printed out. In other words, you can’t tap on it. But, alas, no link. :(

Sorry to complain but I think it’s important to point out that people who put information out on the internet often have no idea of how to communicate effectively or, more likely, just don’t really care. :(

Maybe I’ll call the prefecture. They’ll probably ignore me but one never knows.

P.S. Yesterday Kumamoto broke it’s record for most infections in one day: 4414. Today the number seems to be a bit lower: 4062.