Running from Coronavirus (Part 5)

Being in Australia instantly felt like a relief, a release from the uncertainty of getting locked down in China. The folks in the terminal weren't wearing masks. People were speaking English (of the Australian variety). I could read advertisements and make small talk with strangers. More than the transition to a English speaking country though, the world felt normal. Coffee shops, sandwiches, and not a security guard or temperature check to be seen. It was Saturday morning, February 1st. The sky was blue and the air was warm. Each day of the previous week was marathon of updates and rumors, each one entered into the great algorithm of when to take action and of what kind. Would it make sense to leave China for a week and then come back? Where should I go? The United States or somewhere closer? How long would the country be shut down? When would the airlines stop running? If I did stay in China, how would I get food? What if I got sick? What if I am sick? What would it be like to spend a month or two alone in my apartment? Will the campus reopen? When will we need to go back to work? If I leave China, will my plants die? What time is it? Why is Starbucks still open? The anxiety in these questions heightened by foreignness, illiteracy, and a lack of of control over my surroundings. All of this instantly gone after clearing customs. It helped that I was with two natives of Australia.

We rented a car and drove down the M1 from Brisbane. Jo and Dave had gotten an Airbnb in the town of Hastings Point, about thirty minutes south of the Gold Coast. I had made plans to spend the weekend with my old friend Jake and his wife Mary-Lou. The last time I had seen Jake was when I was living in New York, 2005, and had wrangled up a house paining job in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. Jake happened to be in Quebec at that time and I needed his help. We stayed at the house, painting all day and making use of the swimming pool, coming away with 3K apiece for ten day's work. Since then Jake and Mary-Lou had been living in Australia, mostly, and had been in the town of Ballina for the previous three years. Jake had mostly been painting houses in Australia, but had been diagnosed with Brain cancer three years previous, had surgery, made a miraculous recovery, and had since gotten a job working for a producer of mushroom extracts. He was also a serious surfer as many folk are down there on the coasts. Jake and Mary-Lou had heard of the coronavirus but didn't think much off it. Their news consumption was blissfully minimal.

Before getting to Jake's, we stopped at a Bunnings, a kind of Australian Home Depot, and ate sausage sandwiches, an Australian delicacy. A dad and his two kids were manning the grill at the Bunning's parking garage. I paid in heavy Australian coins. We drove a bit further to Coolangatta and got coffee, sat near the beach and marveled at the blue sky. People walked their dogs, surfed, ate, and rode bikes. We sat on the grass in the sun and talked about contamination, thinking about the 14 day possible incubation period and if we were bringing the virus to Australia. That we wanted to try and keep away from people as much as possible over the next two weeks, and for Jo and Dave, to keep away from their parents. I tried not to look at my phone to read the latest updates. I called Jake and made sure that he was okay with the risk of me coming there, that there was a chance that I carried the virus, asymptomatically or presymptomatically. He said he hadn't gotten sick for years and wasn't worried about it, that I was welcome. At the surf shop where I bought my swimming suit I told the clerk that it was my first time in Australia, that I had arrived that morning. I wanted to tell him more but thought twice. We had arrived in Australia, free and easy, but there was a residue of trauma from the whole experience. Like Indiana Jones reaching back to grab his hat as the stone door closed, we could not believe we had made it out.

Running from Coronavirus (Part 4)

After we got our tickets on Wednesday I began second guessing if leaving on Friday was soon enough. That night, happy to have finally made a decision, over the phone my mom suggested that I should have gotten my ticket to leave the next day. Regardless, she was excited that I'd get the chance to go to Australia and I was too. I was also happy that we found a flight out of Hongqiao airport (about 45 minutes from where we lived) so that we didn't have to make it all the way to Pudong airport (close to 2 hours). Not knowing exactly what the roads or the airports would be like, if we'd encounter long lines for temperature checks on the roads or a suddenly closed airport terminal. I spent Thursday the 30th of January preparing to leave, which meant squaring away all the files and school work that I might need to travel with in case I wasn't able to get back to China for a while. Early that morning my university had sent out an email, informing the faculty that classes would be moving online and that more details about how and when all this would happen were to follow soon. I packed a single duffel bag with clothes for the hot Australian summer and some winter clothes for the cold Midwestern Winter: a sweater, long underwear, a pair of flip-flops, two tank tops, two pairs of gloves, seven t-shirts, seven pairs of underwear, one pair of thermal socks, two hoodies, one long sleeve heavy cotton shirt with buttons, two short sleeve shirts with buttons, three pairs of short socks, two pairs of regular socks, a winter hat, scarf, winter coat, three pairs of shorts.

After squaring away my luggage I took a long walk through Forest Park, which was mostly closed but for the main thoroughfare, a paved path that ran from the south to the north, over a few bridges and ponds. I only passed a few people on my way from one end to the other and back. When I passed them I'd raise my mask over my face but once they were gone I'd take it off again. No music that walk, just the quiet city being enveloped by dusk. When I got back to my complex I failed the temperature check. I tried to say something like I was out for a walk and was hot, failed, and then the security guy scanned my chest. This seemed to confirm something, he smiled, and I was able to reenter the complex. It was not the threat of the virus that was scary but the worry that something else would go wrong. In the morning I hauled my single duffel bag and backpack to the gate to meet our driver and Jo and Dave. The drive to Hongqiao was uneventful but tense. Scenes from our travels:

The roads were empty. Our driver had a shaved head. 

Temperature check on the way into Shanghai. Armies of public health workers.

Hongqiao Airport Terminal 1 on the morning of January 31st. Minimal lines.

Double-face mask  (PM2.5 + surgical), Hong Kong Airport Terminal 2. Mountains over right shoulder.

Our flight from Hong Kong to Brisbane was a red-eye, leaving at 6:30 PM and arriving at 5:15 AM on February 1st. Four hours later, as we would learn, a travel ban was issued by the Australian government, blocking all foreigners from entering the country. The flight was fine, a Qantas jet packed mostly with folks from Australia. Jo and Dave sat in the row behind me and nobody occupied the seat next to mine. I found a Australian motorcycle magazine in the seat pocket which occupied me for a few minutes. I watched Joker for the first time (I liked it!) and some episodes of Veep. I tried to sleep but was not so successful. The stewards were not wearing masks and most folks weren't either. We arrived in Brisbane and made our way through customs. Not one single person asked me a question. I interfaced with two machines. We picked up our bags and exited the terminal, relieved to have made it:

Brisbane airport International terminal, 6:11 AM. Moments later I put on shorts. 

Running from Coronavirus (Part 3)

I left China on the 31st of January, early afternoon; on a flight from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport to Hong Kong, and then a red-eye to Brisbane. It was a Friday, and the previous week of the New Year "holiday" had been a non-stop anxiety, news, and conversation fest where the question of to-stay-or-to-go was the only focus. At this point in the History of the Coronavirus, there was information out there about how easily it was contracted and via what means (sneezes and coughs, handshakes, elevator buttons, door handles, close talkers, waiters, narrow hallways, pets, pangolins, and cruise ships) but there was still a lot we didn't know about the severity of the illness. More than the danger itself, however, was the danger of what might happen if say, a suspected case was discovered in my apartment building and if the authorities would then lock me indoors. Or worse, if I were to fail a temperature check and suddenly be taken to a hospital and locked in a room with sixty other people who failed temperature checks, one of whom actually had the virus and then soon, we'd all have it. Of course these were just imaginary scenarios, of which I had no evidence that any of that would happen. But knowing the power of the State there and the lockdown on Wuhan, the question was when Kunshan was going to be locked down as well, and when that happened, what would life be like and for how long?

Thus, the fear of the government and getting stuck in my apartment was the primary driver of my anxiety that week, rightly or wrongly. However, I was not alone; in these thoughts or in folks to share these thoughts with. My friends Jo and Dave, who lived in a housing complex next to mine were also around for the week long break. After all the breaking news after that first weekend of the break, I invited them over for American style pancakes and sausages (which I only learned were American style after Jo and Dave, who were Australian, told me) on Monday of that week. We ate and chatted and strategized possible scenarios, our Wechat informed understanding of the science, and what to do. All the while, CGTN, the English language Chinese news network who in February of this year had been declared a 'foreign mission' by the US government (which means that they were considered an agency controlled by Beijing, e.g. propaganda) played in the background.

CGTN, January 27th

At that point, the 27th of January, Coronavirus had been acknowledged by President Xi but was still not the only news to report. We chatted, looked out the window, digested, and when the news would cut to Wuhan we'd tune back in. I was desperate for some on the ground English language news coverage of the virus and the CGTN folks provided that. Otherwise, there was a lingering uncertaintly, at least for me, that this was entirely real. Wechat, emails from school, and the handful of stories being run everyday in The Times were not enough. I needed something more corporate to know for sure that this was real. Desperate for more information.

The next day there was a brief discussion on Wechat about some confusion between what the students still on campus had been told by the administration and what student services had said. Students were told that if they were going to leave campus, that they would need to by the 31st of January, Friday of that week. After which campus would be totally locked down and noone would be able to get on or off. The numbers of students still on campus were small, but there were international students who didn't plan to go home for the break and now, students from Wuhan and Hubei province who couldn't get home due to the travel restrictions. Wondering why the 31st was the choosen, I wrote a few wechat messages and learned that this was the day the folks in the administration, who had probably been in touch with government officials, had decided was the day before flight restrictions would start going into place. I went over to Dave and Jo's place on Wednesday morning with my computer, and we all booked tickets to Australia. Sure enough, on the day we arrived in Australia, 6:30 AM on the morning of February 1st, travel restrictions were issued for Australia banning all flights from China, including Hong Kong. Buying a swimming suit at a surf shop in Coolangatta later that morning, the guy asked me what I had been up to, a beautiful day on the beach. I told him that I had just arrived from Hong Kong.