Living in China During The Coronavirus
I’ve been pretty vocal about the coronavirus on my social media platforms, but I thought I would share my thoughts in a blog post!
When did I first learn about the Coronavirus?
I first learned about the coronavirus in the middle of January. At that time, no one in my city, Fuzhou, was concerned because the virus was being contained in Wuhan where it all started. Fuzhou, where I live, is about 600 miles and a 10 hour drive south of Wuhan. So, at the time everyone, including myself felt safe. On top of that, Chinese New Year was around the corner, and I had a planned trip outside of China for a week. I honestly thought by the time I returned to China things would be normal and the Covid-19 threat would be gone.
When did I realize this was more serious than I thought?
I was vacationing in The Philippines, when I received a message from my employer that schools were being closed and our company was extending the holiday. At that moment, I knew things were getting worse! Why? Well, from what I’ve observed while living here is that Education is every Chinese family’s top priority. The fact that they were extending the CNY holiday and closing schools was a big deal! On top of that, by the time I returned to Fuzhou on January 30, most of the busiest areas in the city were ghost towns! Everything was shut down except for supermarkets and pharmacies. Everywhere you went, you had to take your temperature and the number of reported cases were increasing rapidly everyday.
Why did I decide to stay even though the US government warned Americans to leave immediately?
A few reasons:
I didn’t feel like my health was at risk. There are about 7 million people in Fuzhou. In the beginning of February there were only 30 something cases and our numbers (Fuzhou specifically) were moving up slowly.
I still had a job and free rent! My company transitioned into online teaching. It was either go home jobless or have an income. I chose the money, because being jobless in America is not a good situation to be in.
I wasn’t in China for that long. Because my company transitioned to online teaching, I had the opportunity to travel and leave China until things settled down. I decided to stay in Thailand. I was there for almost a month, right before I had to do a visa run. So, again, I didn’t feel like my health was compromised and I was still getting paid.
By the time I returned to Fuzhou at the end of February, things were slowly starting to get back to normal. Shops, parks, and restaurants were reopening. There were more people coming outside and the number of reported cases was decreasing daily.
How is everything now as of June 9, 2020?
There hasn’t been any new cases reported in the city I live in, Fuzhou. Students have returned to School, businesses and factories have reopened and domestic travel is slowly picking up again. As a matter of fact, I’m typing this blog post on the train to Shanghai!
China’s borders are still closed, but life inside the country is back to the way it was. My company is still teaching online, but we are expecting to teach offline in the next couple of weeks.
How is China tracking cases?
China is very high tech. Everything is being monitored on a health app on either WeChat or Alipay. There are three color codes authorities look for: green, yellow and red. Green means you have no symptoms and you haven’t traveled outside your city of residence in 14+ days. This health code allows you to stay at hotels and travel within a city freely without being quarantined. The other two color codes are risks, and means that individual might’ve traveled to a high case city. This person might need to be monitored or quarantined and might not be able to travel for at least 2-3 weeks. How are they able to get this information about you? The health code is attached to your Passport or travel ID. Everything is documented. I even have a text service that tells me what city I’ve traveled to in the last 14 days when I enter the last 4 digits of my passport number.
As a plan to get back to offline teaching, the staff at my company is required to record their temperature every single day in an app on WeChat. So, everyday before 2:00pm I have to take my temperature and record it and my symptoms (if I have any) in a form that is submitted I am assuming to the government so that my company can eventually be approved to reopen.
Now, I know what you are thinking: “isn’t that an invasion of your privacy?” In a way kind of, but this doesn’t bother me if it means making sure people who are moving around aren’t carrying the virus. I feel safe knowing that they are tracking The whereabouts of people who are in high case cities. I personally believe this method is the reason why China is back to normal in such a short amount of time despite what people are saying about their numbers being a lie.
That’s all for now! Hope this information was helpful!