Lockdown, Part 1

In January 2020, we went back to Zunyi for our annual Spring Festival trip; I had not originally intended to write another chapter about it, given that, for the most part, it looked like it would resemble the 2019 version. The first few days consisted of plenty of lunches and dinners, my in-laws Waipo and Waigong getting scared by their granddaughter jumping off things that were inappropriately tall, and me being the token drinker with the family relatives that liked a tipple. So far, so normal.

What changed it though was the knock-on effect from the discovery in December 2019 that there had been several cases of a strain of a pneumonia-origin virus known as a Coronavirus in Wuhan, a large city in central China. The virus was a contagious strain, with many of the original cases seemingly clustered around a seafood market where many live animals were also sold. It was likely that the disease had originated due to poor storage conditions of many animals, who were sold for eating, despite official rules preventing the sale of exotic animals to eradicate situations exactly like this one. This was also much like the fictitious but worryingly prescient film Contagion, where ‘the wrong bat had met the wrong pig’, and a similar flu-type virus had stricken the world and killed millions, completely crushing civilised society in a clear idea of what could happen if such a virus was not kept under control. Here, by the time we made it to Zunyi in late January, there had been over 900 reported cases and more than 20 deaths; the fact that human-to-human transmission had been evidenced was enough to kick-start both some serious security measures on behalf of the authorities and some quite lively panic moves on behalf of the public. Unfortunately, these moves coincided with us being in a Zunyi hotel, far from home.

One of the reasons behind the panic moves was that many people still remembered the outbreak of SARS in 2003, which, quite apart from inspiring the making of Contagion, had heavily impacted southern China and especially Hong Kong, spreading rapidly and killing over 700 people. I should know, I was living in Hong Kong at the time, and the city was entirely shunned by the outside world. That virus had originated in Guangzhou, but the Chinese Government at the time were slow to react and even slower to release correct numbers saying how many people were infected, meaning that it spread uncontrolled for far too long. Compared to this time around, and this was something of a blessing I can see now, there was no social media back then, meaning that the ability to spread rumours, gossip, and panic was slower in 2003 than it is in 2020. In a country that has a combination of a keen regard for health and health matters alongside a fair dose of superstition and worry, such situations tend to stoke people’s fears quickly, and in Zunyi, everyone was glued to WeChat, which was doing a great job of people stoking each other’s fears. Any videos or pictures of an actual incident, usually in Wuhan, were spread round in seconds. Although, of course then amongst the foreigner community, some of it was also played for laughs; one share was the transcript of a Wuhan-based expat group that was eye-opening for the level of hysteria shown by one of its members, who seemed to take it as a violent personal insult that the other members of the group were not storming the gates of Wuhan themselves just to rescue her.

Back when SARS hit Hong Kong, even though I was in the middle of the situation, I was unconcerned by the outbreak. This was mainly because most of the cases had been spread well away from where I lived, and due to some of the precautionary measures brought into play by my employer, I ended up spending the period ‘working from home’. This meant sitting at home on my own, not doing much except staying out of trouble. If you do not interact with anyone else or go outside of a controlled environment, then you are probably not going to catch a contagious disease, a fact that seemed to escape some people of a more nervous disposition at that time. To the point that back then, many expats sent their families home to UK/USA/Australia, and stayed behind in Hong Kong to live on their own for a while. SARS stood for Single Again, Really Smashed. Anyway, I received lots of messages from family and friends back in the UK worried about what has happened, but I reassured them all that I was fine and that, for me, I was not too worried about the situation. Whilst things did get bad in Hong Kong for a while, almost as quickly as the disease had come around, it had gone again, and things eventually went back to normal. Thankfully it never returned.

This time around, the situation was slightly different. Not because I then viewed the risk being so much higher — this time, the disease had been noted at an earlier stage, and I was in a city where (officially at least) there had not been a single reported case — but because I was not on my own. I had a wife and a child to worry about and then in-laws who could worry about all of us, themselves, and pretty much everyone else. Which meant that danger lurked on every corner each time we went out. Could we take Keira to the kids’ centre? No, not advised. Could she go on the slide? No, too dangerous. Could we go to the market? Unlikely. What should we do? Sit in the hotel room and wait for everything to pass us by, which is just what you want when your toddler is tearing up the walls and using the sofa as a trampoline. On New Year’s Day we would traditionally have had a big meal with family and friends, so I was surprised to hear that it had been cancelled. People were not going out now. My comment that a few glasses of baijiu would have killed most germs and stopped anyone picking up the disease was not especially well received. The number of cases by now was up above 1,400, and the deaths topping 40.

To my surprise, that afternoon, we did however, manage to go for a walk in a nearby park. A Guizhou New Year’s tradition is to go outside and pick up a stick to bring back inside, to stoke luck in the forthcoming year (seriously). Every past Spring Festival that I had been to Zunyi we had done this. After a couple of days of not doing much, and not helped by the fact that it was raining, my expectations were low, but, finally, we did get out. On previous trips, the parks had always been full of people, foraging for sticks everywhere, but this time we were virtually the only people there, as the parks were deserted. At least my daughter Keira got her choice of the best wood to take back to Waipo. When we were approached by one guy who was a bit over-zealous in his efforts to talk to us and Keira, my wife Heidi shooed him away like he was a leper. Admittedly he was a bit strange, but I have not noticed any medical links so far between carrying a contagious disease and being a bit of a weirdo. Maybe that is the next link.

I could also see another battle brewing that I was really not fancying. Back in the SARS time I had never worn a facemask; as a claustrophobe, I found them oppressive and annoying. Even at this case, right then, the official recommendation was simply to wash your hands more often; as we all know, it took nearly half a year for masks to become the norm in the West, and even then a lot of people were still reluctant. However in China, masks seem to give people comfort, make them feel like they are putting up a barrier to prevent infection, even if it is sometimes questionable how effective they are. And because of this, masks now were everywhere, not least on all the members of my family. Waigong never took his off, even in the hotel room when it was just us, and barely even when he stopped to eat. He went out and bought one for everyone, then went and bought some more because they were selling out and he felt we should stock up. This means that my disregard for them did not go down well. My point, that on top of a hill on a wet afternoon when no-one else had been up there for days, you had more chance — literally — of being struck by a meteorite than you did of catching the Coronavirus did not carry much weight. Heidi’s view was ‘of course you should wear it, you just don’t like being told what to do’ would have sat better if she had in any way accepted my view that she should not bother with a mask that was a waste of time; which of course, she did not. When we were due to fly back, sitting on an enclosed airplane or passing through a busy airport, that maybe had more of a case to answer, but if anyone thought I would wear one 24–7 then they were mistaken. Heidi then managed to raise the stakes by employing Keira to work some emotional blackmail on her behalf; when we went down to the hotel restaurant for lunch, everyone except me masked up, and Keira kept asking “Daddy why you not wear your mask? Wear your mask Daddy!” Yep thanks for that.

As the situation developed, the virus was starting to have a greater and more significant influence on daily life. I received an email from Keira’s kindergarten, saying it would be suspended for two weeks after the end of the school holiday, which itself had nearly another two weeks to run. And I was looking nervously at my next trip, scheduled for a couple of weeks’ time, when I was due to attend my cousin Michelle’s wedding in Ireland, along with all my family. Were they even going to let me in the country? The big shock had been that the city where the whole problem had started, Wuhan, had been completely locked down and quarantined, which was a big deal, not least over the Spring Festival holiday when most of the country ups and moves around to go to visit their families. Unfortunately the decision came probably a week late, given that the massive movement of people had already started, but it was still a hugely symbolic thing to do. Everyone pitied the people of Wuhan then, stuck in their city with a contagious disease on the loose, no way out, and everyone stocking up like crazy on food and provisions such that the supermarket shelves were empty. Even I might wear a mask there. Back in Hong Kong during SARS, cross-border traffic slowed to a trickle, but the borders were never officially closed, and we were never legally quarantined. But this time round, if things got worse, would countries stop taking flights from China altogether? It seemed a far-fetched idea, but we had little feeling for what was going to come. Whether or not I turned up at a wedding was probably the least of anybody’s concerns, but the fact that this was even a possibility was not a good sign.

The situation continued to escalate. Firstly, Waigong turned up with his own bowls and chopsticks, deciding that it was too risky to use the hotel’s own offerings for our meals. I did not mind this too much until I noticed that he had only bought three pairs of chopsticks, and there were four adults. Maybe I was expendable after all. Either way, using the chopsticks was when we were in the restaurant; this time, before we entered, we found that they had started taking everyone’s temperature on the way in. What they were going to do if anyone did register a high figure was not very clear, but it seemed to make everyone feel more confident about being in public. This lasted all of one day; the following day, when we were not venturing outside the front door but just going to eat in the hotel, the hotel restaurant told us that they had shut completely. It was room service only; everyone had to eat in isolation. I was beginning to look forward to our meals as the one time of the day that I could get out of the room, and now we were back in again without more than a minute’s break. Wonderful. And if I thought it was not going to come too close to home, Heidi’s brother sent a message that he had to stay away as he had been working with some patients with lung infections at his hospital, and so was required to self-quarantine. There was no suggestion that these patients had the virus; they were in for other things, but even so it was a sobering moment given that we had been interacting with him just two days before.

That afternoon, Keira and Heidi both took a nap. I told Waigong I was slipping out to the shop to buy some water, waving my mask at him as I did so to indicate that I might possibly wear it. I did buy some water but then went for a walk down by the Xiang River that ran through the centre of Zunyi and right past our hotel. I was pleased to notice at least a few other people out and about, just walking for walking’s sake, and some of them — keep it quiet — not wearing masks either. Being able to walk and sit outside for a while, having a few moments of peace and calm, helped put things back into perspective and help me remember that maybe the world was not falling apart just quite yet.

After a couple of days of sitting still in a single hotel room, we took the decision to return to Shanghai. Whilst there had been a few recorded cases of the virus in Shanghai, and to our knowledge none in Zunyi, it made sense to get home whilst we still could; if the situation did worsen further, and Shanghai was closed, then we could be stuck in Zunyi for a very long time. And it was not that big a hotel room. We had been booked to fly back a few days later anyway, meaning that going through the airport and the flight was something that we would have had to face up to regardless. And despite Heidi’s view that ‘the silver lining to this is being able to put our feet up and do nothing for a few days without going out’, I could feel myself getting cabin fever, even despite my afternoon walks. I wondered how many more days I would have been able to sit there without sliding into behaviour like the young boy in the film Roomhaving conversations with the objects around me — “Hello lamp. Hello table. Hello chair.”

To be honest there was not much going on in Shanghai; the public holiday for Spring Festival had officially been extended by four days, preventing people from moving around to go to work, but it was appealing to be at home in our own environment, with some semblance then of control over what we were doing. We could also distract Keira with some of her toys and books for a while, rather than having her sit watching television for most of the day as she was currently doing. Even if we were going to be on our own for a while yet, Heidi telling the Ayi [nanny] to come back to Shanghai but then sit in quarantine for a week before coming back to us. Oh, but not entirely on our own; it also transpired that Waigong was going to accompany us. The official explanation for this was that he could look after Keira while we were waiting for the Ayi, but if he was planning to spend all day at home with her on his own I think he might have a shock waiting for him.

On our last night, I was surprised when we were led outside for dinner, rather than sitting in the room. We wandered around as most of the restaurants were closed, but eventually, we found one that was open, and we had the best of both worlds; we could sit outside in a restaurant and eat a proper meal, but as the restaurant itself was deserted, we were the only people in there, helpfully reducing any risk of infection.

As we packed up ready to go back to Shanghai, it seemed our decision was vindicated; the hotel had decided to close completely and was asking all guests to leave. Whether this was their decision or the government’s was not made clear at the time, but it seemed excessive either way. However risky the flight home might be, I was ready to return home.

Clearly, travelling home through a crowded airport would be more of a risk than sitting in a quiet hotel room. So this meant taking no chances; anything for a quiet life, I made sure to mask up, as did everyone else. In addition to masks though, Waigong, Heidi, and Keira also wore disposable plastic gloves to make sure that they would not have to touch anything during the trip. For some reason, there were only three pairs and I did not get one, of course not that I would have worn them anyway. As it was, the airport was quiet and the flight quieter, passing by without incident as everyone on the plane huddled in their seat and refused to move or interact with anyone else. Supposedly to reduce potential chances for virus transmission, the flight had no food or drink anyway (even in business class!)

One way or another, we made it home. It was nice to be back. Heidi was straight onto some of the myriad of delivery apps that proliferate in China, which meant there was a succession of product deliveries on our first day. But this also meant that there was no real reason to go out. It was made clear that leaving the apartment was going to be severely frowned upon unless there was some pending emergency. I lasted one day before finding we were out of both milk and juice and slipped out, of course masked up, to the local supermarket to see what was going on. Were the shelves going to be empty? Were there going to be fighting over the last can of beans? Strict rationing of packets of crisps? No, in the end it was anti-climactic, as the supermarket was both quiet and well-stocked. The only things they had sold out of were bananas and instant noodles, seemingly Shanghai residents having bunkered in for the long haul, with enough noodles to outlast the upcoming apocalypse. Instant noodles are very much China’s equivalent to Twinkies, as being the only foodstuff that could last for years, still provide (a little) nutrition, and potentially survive any nuclear holocaust or the inevitable rise of the zombie armies. Still this was not a product that I needed, as fuelled by all the deliveries, Waigong was whipping up a storm in the kitchen. The one product in the supermarket which was clearly not sold out was Corona beer, which was on heavy discount everywhere; through no fault of their own they had been caught up in the worries about the virus, judged as guilty by association, and clearly no-one was buying. One famous viral clip was of a woman in the UK, wearing a facemask and furiously pouring her husband’s Corona beer down the sink lest it infected them both with the virus. He was laughing too hysterically at her actions to be able to convince her of her misinterpretation of the situation.

When I came home, Heidi was there to meet me at the door. “Wipe down your coat with alcohol. Wash the bottles you brought in. Wash your hands. Make sure all your clothes from the trip go in the washing machine. Don’t press the buttons on the elevator with your hands; you might catch from someone using the lift before you.” Sheesh. My take on the virus was though it clearly was transmitted person-to-person, the amount of time it lived outside of the body was short, and you would have to be in close vicinity to an infected person to catch it. Plus I was washing my hands regularly, most notably whenever I came in from outside. My frustration rose further when I said I was going to go to a friend’s flat just round the corner for a drink and was told that any fraternisation was not allowed, even though he and his family had been sitting inside for much of the last two weeks also. Despite the rising infection rate, Shanghai’s number of infections, amongst a population of 23+ million do not forget, was still very small. But no, danger still lurked everywhere.