I was shocked when reading online news about coronavirus case spreading at the third wave in Ibaraki two days ago. For the first time, my prefecture had over 50 cases, 85 cases to be exact.

Here, the picture I got from website covid19japan:

Corona virus cases in Ibaraki Prefecture went down during September and October. It's on stage 2. It means infection could be controlled mostly. Therefore, I rarely read news about covid-19 anymore. 

Since November, the cases have been increasing lately. So that Ibaraki went up to stage 3. It means the corona virus is spreading.

We can check it on this picture below. I got it from ibarakistopcovid website.

Honestly, the daily life in Tsukuba has started to be normal. We call it newnormal. The school children have been offline since the government ended the state of national emergency. People also started traveling to other prefectures or regions. 

However, with the increasing number of cases in this third wave, we all of course have to be vigilant. From the news I heard, the prime minister said that Japan is currently in a maximum alert condition. The major of Tsukuba asks people not to go out otherwise it's important and to shorten business operating hours. In addition, keep social distance, wear a mask, wash our hands diligently, and avoid places that have three C criteria (closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings). As I read on the TsukubaInfo website.

In my Japanese class, my sensei also reminded us to always be careful.

Although in daily life, the conditions here are cleaner and more orderly (no one is spitting, no dog is dropping poo in public and no litter is scattered) which all makes things better according to my own hypothesis, but we still have to take care of ourselves.

The warnings are increasingly being found in public places. Some below are for example.

Cocoa, application for tracking covid-19. Everyone must download it on playstore.

@ Tsukuba Station

@ Hitachino Ushiku Station

@ Hitachino Ushiku Station