Unusual protection from COVID-19

From Atlas Obscura, a tale from Japan newly relevant to current circumstances:

In the first half of 1846, a kawaraban, or cheaply printed broadside, recorded a strange account in Japan’s old Higo Province on Kyūshū island. A local government official had spotted a curious creature in the water one evening: a scaly, three-legged figure with long hair and a beak. Even more curious, it had warned him of a forthcoming illness and instructed him to draw and distribute its image for protection. A sketch was printed next to this account, and as the kawaraban spread, so did tales of this mysterious half-merperson, half-bird, from Kyūshū all the way to Edo.

Known as Amabie, this yōkai, or spirit, has become associated with refuge from epidemics. It makes sense, then, that it has resurfaced during the global COVID-19 pandemic, only this time on social media. Illustrations of Amabie are circulating on Twitter and Instagram under the hashtags #amabie and #アマビエ; artists around the world are drawing and sharing Amabie in hopes of repelling disease, or at the very least honing their talents and finding community while social distancing....

Scholars believe that Amabie is a local variation of Amabiko, a similar Japanese creature that appears from the sea and prophesies good harvests and outbreaks of disease. “In accounts of Amabiko, it is sometimes said that the image itself can ward off the epidemic,” says Jack Stoneman, a professor of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. “This is not unusual in Japanese cultural history—images as talismans.”

Here's an old school version of the critter, indicating that Japanese art is not always that impressive  (Wikipedia says this is a woodblock print from the Edo era.  Really?)

Here's another version, which I think is modern but looking more "old-school vibe":

And here's a recent government poster using that old woodblock image, it seems:

I feel safer already...