Day 9

By Katy

Time drags on. I have seen many lists of all the things you can do in quarantine. But when it’s actual quarantine it can be hard to motivate yourself to do those things. The temptation is to scroll too much and scare yourself by reading social media posts. When I read posts from journalists in Wuhan I didn’t want to believe some of what I saw. But now I’m seeing similar posts from people in the UK and can only conclude they were telling the truth.

We’ve had some concerned messages about the so-called ‘second wave’ here in China. I think it’s worth pointing out that this second wave is all imported cases. I’ve heard of maybe one locally transmitted case a day. These imported cases aren’t too much of a concern in China due to the way that you are treated when you arrive here. The steps to get back to your home are:

• Wait on the aeroplane for 2 to 4 hours. Temperature checks on the plane.
• Fill in an online health declaration
• Fill in a paper health declaration
• If your code goes anything but green have an interview where you are asked all the questions you have just written down. Temperature check.
• Get your traffic light themed sticker and be escorted to another holding area
• Use another app to get another code for unspecified reasons
• Be escorted to luggage area to collect your luggage
• Go through the color coded door to in our case another holding area. Temperature check.
• Wait for the bus to your district
• Get on another bus to your city after another health interview and temperature check.
• Get on a minibus when you have arrived in your city which takes you to your apartment, if you’re lucky.

Now nobody is allowed to do their 14 day quarantine in their apartment. Which is why the ‘second wave’ is not something to be concerned about. It’s all centralised in hotels so we just feel very lucky to be in our apartment. Or we should. It is hard not to feel just a little resentful of all the people who feel that they ‘need’ running for their mental health who say they just don’t know what they’d do if they were in lockdown when we’re in such an extreme quarantine that we can’t even go to the shared garden area of our apartment building. What’s worse are the people who went to the beach this weekend or who leave their apartment because they couldn’t cope with the boredom. That is why quarantines like this have to happen and they are so hard.

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It seems inevitable that the UK will have to go into full lock down as too many people are ignoring the advice. Perhaps this is for the best given the number of young people who seem to be badly affected. Just because young people can fight it off doesn’t mean that they can’t get seriously ill with it. And if the NHS becomes overwhelmed they won’t be able to save people who they should have been able to save.Ultimately it feels selfish to be moaning about quarantine when there are people putting their lives on the line. We as teachers were able to run away from the virus. Well, we were already out of the country and we just stayed there. Teachers in China have never been asked to risk their lives due to childcare issues. Childcare is a lot more community based here. Children are not just brought up by their parents but often they are brought up by grandparents. China never made a distinction between more or less vulnerable groups but just tried to protect everyone equally. So for whatever reason there was never a question of schools not closing. But if we were in the UK we would be asked to be on the front line to ensure that key workers can do their jobs. I have seen many posts from fellow teachers pleading with the general public not to send their children to school unnecessarily as advice from the government has been less than clear on this.

Not to mention the healthcare professionals, my brother included, putting themselves at huge risk on a daily basis. Reading a post from a nurse of the lengths she is going to to not infect her family it was hard not to cry.

I mention these two professions as they are close to home but there are so many people who will have to continue to go to work to keep the country functioning. All of whom will find it difficult to get food in the coming months because of the selfishness of those panic buying.

So I guess my take away from this is social distancing is really tough, particularly if you are going to the lengths of self-isolating. You will feel very low at times. But it’s the least we can all do if it helps keep our key workers a little safer and means they have to do this for less time.