Living in an Epidemic

By now, most of you have heard about the coronavirus which is spreading through China (and now the world) and has the potential of being an epidemic. It is obvious that China still remembers what happened with the SARS outbreak and how their efforts to hide the extent of the infection led to a more extensive outbreak. More importantly for the government, it was a great embarrassment, which the CCP (China Communist Party) does not want to experience again. So, they are being much more proactive in their efforts to control the spread of the virus and much more open about the extent of the infection. While reports place the official count of infections in the 2,000-5,000 range, claims have emerged on social media that there are more than 90,000 cases. Daily Mail: Nurse claims 90,000 already infected

While we are located about 700 miles from Wuhan, the source of the virus, extensive measures have already been taken to prevent the spread of the virus in Xiamen. This has transformed what should have been a rather quiet Chinese New Year break into a surreal experience. To begin with, let me give you a brief description of the Chinese Spring Festival holiday. Being a lunar holiday, Chinese New Year day falls some time between late January and mid February. Employees generally get a week of vacation while students get from four to six weeks off. It sounds like a lot (and it is) but that is to facilitate what is probably the largest annual human migration in the world. The traditional celebration of Spring Festival entails traveling home town for a large family gathering. For families, it means traveling first to the husband's parents and then to the wife's. Now, not everyone makes both visits, but imagine the logistics significant percentage of 1.2 billion people moving around a country slightly larger than the U.S.

For the foreigner, this also impacts daily life significantly because most businesses shut down for at least a week, so it is important to stock up on supplies and be ready for a quiet couple of weeks. For me, that is just fine, but many of my colleagues travel outside of China so that they can experience normal life and not have to deal with the inconveniences of the holiday. So, getting back to the story, we were already anticipating a very low-key holiday with maybe a couple of short trips.

We took our first trip to Jinmen, Taiwan (a small island about 30 minutes from Xiamen by ferry). While there, we became aware of the outbreak and started to hear the concerns of our friends back home. Still, it was a long way from Xiamen; what was the big deal? We picked up a few facial masks before returning home to what seemed to be just a serene Spring Festival holiday. Our compound had a typical celebration with firecrackers throughout the night. The next day I took a trip back to Jinmen, and it was on my return that the tenor of the situation changed. The ferry ride back was unremarkable until I realized we had been docked for 10 minutes and were still on the boat. Eventually, what appeared to be two nurses and a health inspector boarded the ferry and approached two men in the back. The nurses proceeded to ask them questions and examine them while the health inspector videoed the interaction. After about 10 more minutes, they let the other passengers off but kept the two men aboard.
 

And that was when we realized this was not just an aggressive flu strain that would eventually run its course. Over the next few days our lives changed. First, the city canceled all public meetings which meant that our Sunday fellowship could not meet. Then, I was contacted by my school and given a thermometer with which I was to take my temperature twice a day and report it.

Soon afterwards, we were informed that masks were required to be worn in all public spaces including buses, subway, taxis, supermarkets, malls -- anywhere there were people. By now we knew there was a shortage of masks, though, and weren't sure how long our paper masks would last. Fortunately, the school also provided us with masks. We also were told how to wear masks and told that we needed to regularly wash our hands. (It is worth noting here that this is not a common practice in China. It is rare to find soap in public restrooms, which also helps to explain how the hygiene practices here have contributed to the spread of the virus.)

We were also told that we needed to limit our travel to essential travel. The compound we live in then shut off the back gate to all foot traffic, bicycles, and motorcycles, directing those forms of transportation to the front gate (which is the gate that we rarely use). And then we discovered they were stopping all incoming pedestrians and cyclists and taking their temperatures before allowing them to enter.

Along with this, we have been told that the official Spring Festival holiday has been extended for all employees. We also learned the start of the second term of school is going to be delayed, how long we don't know. Emily's term was to begin February 17 and mine February 24. Now it looks like we won't be back to school before at least March.

So, we are still in the thick of everything trying to understand what it all means. Fortunately, some supermarkets around us have been open, so we have stocked up on essentials and feel ready to hunker down for a couple weeks. I hope by then that more businesses will have resumed and that life will take on some normalcy, but that is hard to predict at this point.

We have never experienced anything even close to this in the States. Please remember us and the people over here. We definitely need it.