Life During the Coronavirus Epidemic in China

(Photo of three guards wearing face masks in front of Lama Temple courtesy of a friend living in Beijing.)

I’m not sure if I should be sharing to the outside world what I’m about to share but I feel like you should know. Besides, it’s not a secret anymore that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in China has become a national crisis.

I landed in Chongqing on January 22nd after a short trip to Vietnam. Before I left for Vietnam just four days earlier, I hadn’t even heard of the coronavirus. By the morning of the 23rd, Wuhan city was under lockdown.

Nobody is allowed in or out of Wuhan. Leaving is a federal offense and is punishable by law with a 7-year sentence.

At least that’s what I hear from different family members who obsessively check their WeChats for the latest updates. Even I check live statistics of newly confirmed cases and, as grim as it sounds, of the number of deaths, like I’m checking score of a sports game or something (not that I ever do that).

There are tons of rumors out there in WeChat land and they’re sending people into a frenzy. Yesterday morning my mom and I went to the supermarket twice to load up on supplies. We went again in the evening, in a small panic, when we heard that all food establishments would be closed indefinitely. This turned out not to be true (thank goodness because we didn’t get enough greens in the morning).

No news is official until it has been broadcasted on TV, though. (I am literally updating this post every few hours as new information surfaces as rapidly as the virus is spreading.)

The fuel of this coronavirus fire is that it’s occurring during Chinese New Year (CNY). This is the period of the world’s largest human migration. You know what that means?

It means 1.39 billion people are traveling.

It also means that between the initial outbreak of the virus and CNY on January 25th over 290,000 residents of Wuhan had already left Hubei Province before the lockdown was even imposed. Today the news reports that 5 million have already left Hubei. Jeez Louise.

That’s a shit ton of free mileage for a killer virus.

For most Chinese people, CNY is the only time of year folks get to go home to their families. Parents who work in the big cities go home to see their children in their rural hometowns. Working children go home to their aging parents. It’s the most important family reunion of the year and central to Chinese traditions. It’s our Christmas, our Hanukkah, our Ramadan.

My mom and I made it safely into Chongqing to celebrate the new year with my dad’s side of the family. But due to the rapidly escalating situation, all reunions were called off and my cousins stayed home with their young children—I was so disappointed I didn’t get to meet my cousin’s new baby!

For the four days I was in Chongqing, I didn’t go beyond a 3 block radius of my grandma’s residential compound. And between the hotel, the supermarket, and my grandma’s I always had a face mask on.

Honestly, I shouldn’t even have stepped foot into the supermarket where lines were atrociously long and shelves were being emptied by frenzied citizens. People were preparing for a potential lockdown. There was even talk of water lines being shut.

In Beijing, subway stations screen riders’ temperatures. If you have a temperature above 37-degrees Celsius, they’ll quarantine you. Official holiday dates have been extended and back-to-school dates have been pushed back. National parks, tourist attractions, movie theaters, and restaurants are closed. Even my dad’s cemetery is closed until further notice.

Remember Y2K in the US? That insanity is comparable to this madness…except the coronavirus is real and people are actually dying.

My mom and I cut our holiday short in Chongqing, where the infection rate was escalating more rapidly than here in Kunming. On January 23rd there was only a single confirmed case in Kunming. Today, on Jan. 26 there are 19. But still, it’s sunnier here which makes the epidemic slightly more tolerable.

Normally I sneer at propaganda. But this year while watching the annual Spring Festival gala on TV, the most anticipated television program of the year, I came to understand the necessity of it. I came to understand why it’s important to show off a nation’s accomplishments and almighty power. It gives people hope.

The propaganda thus becomes less propaganda and more like messages of encouragement to Chinese citizens to work together to get through this crisis; and becomes gratitude to those who are separated from their families at this time of year, like the doctors and nurses risking their own lives to treat patients, and the cab drivers and restaurant workers who continue working to serve those doctors and nurses.

It is propaganda necessary to keep a nation of 1.39 billion calm and collected, and most importantly, to send some positive vibes at a time of turmoil that should have been the happiest time of year. And I totally get it.

In the true spirit of Chinese work ethic and efficiency, two quarantine hospitals are being constructed. I mean, like, as we speak. They have until February 7th to be completed. That’s just 15 days to build two hospitals.

Why Feb. 7th? Because the incubation period (about 2 weeks) for those potentially infected of the 5 million people who fled Hubei Province, is nearing an end, and we are bracing ourselves for a massive eruption of the virus in the first week of February.

Naturally, there is a lot of speculation and blame being thrown around. Who started this virus? Was it the two girls who ate a bat? Was it the guy who ate the snake that ate the bat? Was it a foreign government who planted this virus in China’s most centrally located city at the most inopportune time of year?

What we do know is that the virus traces back to the seafood and wild animal market in Wuhan. Why the heck is there a wild animal market in the first place? Why are we messing with Mother Nature and eating things like BATS for god’s sake?! Perhaps this epidemic will finally set some people straight on the consequences of messing with nature.

In expat WeChat groups, people are making fun of a woman named Flora, an American stuck in Wuhan. They’re making memes and cruel jokes about her being hysterical when her fear is perfectly legitimate. Desperate people are demanding to be seen at the hospital and spitting in doctors’ faces when they get turned away. And still some are taking advantage of the situation and collecting and reselling used face masks.

But mostly, I’m witnessing kindness. Even my mom, who is easily aggravated by taxi drivers because she thinks they’re always trying to rip her off, is thanking them and wishing them good health.

I hope that friends both inside and outside of China won’t suddenly be afraid of every Chinese person they encounter. Do what you have to do to stay safe, but don’t let this paranoia drive you to distrust your neighbors.

Not to sound preachy and propaganda-y myself, but more than ever we should be looking out for one another. This novel coronavirus doesn’t distinguish between our bank statements and ethnic backgrounds. It has the potential to attack us all. We are in this together now. We need support, not hate.

I have zero doubt that China will get through this. It really is a powerful nation in both the best and the worst ways. But this is not a time to bash a government that’s trying to solve a crisis and save our people.

This is time for some serious empathy. For the government, for the desperate patients and perhaps even more desperate doctors, for the people trapped in Wuhan, for all the families in China and abroad. The alternative is we all go nuts and kill each other and ourselves before the virus even gets to us.

But I know we are better than that.

武汉加油！中国加油！Go Wuhan! Go China! This sucks but I believe in you!