COVID-19: the Continuing Saga
March 12, 2020Posted by Kanga. Please do not reblog.
We are now coming to the end of my 5th week and DaddyBird’s 6th week in the Shanghai coronavirus experience. The schools are still closed, so I work from home. We go out once a week to meet friends and get a little socialization.
Many of the international schools have put out the call for teachers who are still abroad to come back to Shanghai to do their 2 week quarantine. There is still no official opening date for the schools from the government. The concern seems to be that if the disease is soon considered under control in China, but is only beginning to spread in the rest of the world, the borders might close and teachers would not be able to get back.
Many concerns were expressed by teachers abroad, especially those with children. They wanted to know as many details as possible about the process of return and what will happen. The health check at the airport is more stringent now. Anyone with symptoms would have to go into official quarantine. Those who have traveled in countries with high chance of infection will quarantine at home under some supervision. All others can quarantine at home with few restrictions.
More restaurants are opening. Museums and parks are opening. Corporations have called their workers back to work. Things are getting back to normal slowly.
Two weeks ago, this is what it looked like at Starbucks. The chairs were all arranged to keep individuals apart and not facing each other. There were signs with instructions on how to behave and to not rearrange the furniture. (It didn’t keep people from doing just that, however, as a couple came in and rearranged the chairs so they could sit and talk face to face.)
Whiling away the hours has included jigsaw puzzles, some plastic block constructions, and coloring.
Even some Dungeons and Dragons, for socialization.
A trip on the metro two weeks ago looked like this.
The taxi line outside the major grocery/department store looked like this.
Normally, there are no taxis and you have to wait a long, long time to get one.
Our lives revolve around food.
As of this week, Laowai Jie (Foreigner Street) still looked like this on a Sunday afternoon.
We may be going out more often, but it is likely to be several more weeks of working from home.
Living the Travel Channel 
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