Newest Outdoor Danger in Hokkaido

There is a new tick-borne infection in Japan, which had caused seven deaths so far this year.  This infection is called Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (SFTS) and is spread by a virus that was first identified in China in 2011.  As of the 10^th of April, seven men and four women have come down with the disease and all of them are age 50 or older. (Sounds bad for old folks like me and Ted, doesn’t it?) The SFTS virus is carried by ixodid ticks (madani in Japanese). There is no cure at present; patients must wait for a natural recovery. Tick experts (did you know there were such people?) say prevention is the key – wear long pants and sleeves, tie cuffs and hems with rubber bands and cover the neck with a towel. A tick expert at Yokohama National University says a tick secretes a cement-like substance for a whole day to affix its mouth to the skin, making tick removal difficult 24 hours after being bitten. An expert of tick-borne infections at Asahikawa-Kosei General Hospital in Hokkaido advises people to visit a hospital and have a small section of skin around the bite removed rather than trying to remove it and spreading the pathogenic agent.

All this tick infection business makes me want to stay inside and stitch.  How about you?

Here’s an update on the yo-yo shawl.  I’ve made all the cut circles into yo-yo’s and laid them out. This is just a tentative lay-out, you understand, to see the size and I see that I need more circles. I'll work on the color lay-out more as I go along. (This picture looks like there are blue yo-yo's but they are really deep red and deep purple.)

 

My original plan was to cover plastic rings and randomly place them. The only rings I had were too small.

 

I looked at all the fabric/craft stores and hyaku yen stores and even Homac (not exactly, but something like a Lowe’s or Menards in the US), but I didn't find them.  My friend Jamie and I searched the four floors of Kanariya in Sapporo, then tried to tell the store clerks what we wanted.  Either they don't have them or the store employees didn't understand us. Working with the small ones I have, I kept going around the initial covering until it was big enough.

 

I like how this looks, so I will make some more like it and cut a few more circles for yo-yo’s. It would be nice to have a bigger area to lay it out, but my gomi scrapbook table will have to do.  This is so much fun.