- Joined
- Aug 12, 2017
- Messages
- 328
- Purraise
- 624
A lot of people not living in the epicenter here didn't take it seriously at first either. They didn't throw parties, but a lot did crowd tourist tourist spots. So the government had to shut all of them down and do the lock-down.
That's when everyone went into full-blown paranoia mode. Instant noodles, bottled water and canned fruit flew off shelves. They got easier to find once the panic-buying died down. Now, two months later, there are loads of people with 6 month's stock of cheap ramen noodles that they'll probably never eat
I remember getting into an elevator with a lady a week into the lockdown. She had a hat, gloves and a mask on, and she was carrying some sort of spray. There was this fear in her eyes when she realised she was going to have to share the elevator with another person. She pushed the button for her floor with a toothpick. And she dropped the toothpick right after. When the doors opened, even though there wasn't anyone else in the corridor, she sprayed whatever it was she carried, waited a couple of seconds, and then darted out.
Building management had to put up a sign in the elevator telling people to stop spraying the buttons with alcohol.
Worst part of it was that my Chines isn't that great, so I hard trouble finding updates until friends showed me how to check local reports on social media.
Some of the videos were heart-wrenching. There was one of a group of nurses from a hospital in Wuhan, the city where it all started, and one of them was saying they'd been reusing PPEs, but that they were still going to run out of them in a few days time anyway. And I remember there was this other one taken by a patient sitting in a hospital bed- all the doctors and nurses around him were wearing what looked like full-blown hazmat gear. There was an interview where a nurse even explained that she was getting dehydrated cause she didn't want to drink water in case she might have to pee- that would mean she'd have to waste a suit. (That's also how I knew it was going to get ugly in Italy when I saw pictures of doctors there handling patients wearing just scrubs.)
Then there were the viral spitter videos. One woman was filmed spitting on drug store clerks after they told her the medication she wanted was out of stock. Another spat on every door handle she came across in her apartment building. Weird thing was, they later tested negative for the virus.
I had to limit going out to once a day cause I only had 5 masks at home and you're not supposed to go out without one. I only managed to buy more masks at the end of Feb.
The atmosphere around here improved last week, when the news reported no new local cases for 7 consecutive days. I'm starting to see kids playing and people taking walks when I go downstairs to pick up packages. People actually smile at each other. And I now share the elevator with people who push buttons with their fingers instead of toothpicks. It's amazing how everyone can do a 360 based on one news report.
The government just announced they're going to re-open a section of the great wall, and life is slowly getting back to normal. But I'm apprehensive. The city I live started reporting imported cases a couple of days ago. There are a few new ones almost every day.
So far it seems like South Korea's the only country that didn't get caught with their pants down.
That's when everyone went into full-blown paranoia mode. Instant noodles, bottled water and canned fruit flew off shelves. They got easier to find once the panic-buying died down. Now, two months later, there are loads of people with 6 month's stock of cheap ramen noodles that they'll probably never eat
I remember getting into an elevator with a lady a week into the lockdown. She had a hat, gloves and a mask on, and she was carrying some sort of spray. There was this fear in her eyes when she realised she was going to have to share the elevator with another person. She pushed the button for her floor with a toothpick. And she dropped the toothpick right after. When the doors opened, even though there wasn't anyone else in the corridor, she sprayed whatever it was she carried, waited a couple of seconds, and then darted out.
Building management had to put up a sign in the elevator telling people to stop spraying the buttons with alcohol.
Worst part of it was that my Chines isn't that great, so I hard trouble finding updates until friends showed me how to check local reports on social media.
Some of the videos were heart-wrenching. There was one of a group of nurses from a hospital in Wuhan, the city where it all started, and one of them was saying they'd been reusing PPEs, but that they were still going to run out of them in a few days time anyway. And I remember there was this other one taken by a patient sitting in a hospital bed- all the doctors and nurses around him were wearing what looked like full-blown hazmat gear. There was an interview where a nurse even explained that she was getting dehydrated cause she didn't want to drink water in case she might have to pee- that would mean she'd have to waste a suit. (That's also how I knew it was going to get ugly in Italy when I saw pictures of doctors there handling patients wearing just scrubs.)
Then there were the viral spitter videos. One woman was filmed spitting on drug store clerks after they told her the medication she wanted was out of stock. Another spat on every door handle she came across in her apartment building. Weird thing was, they later tested negative for the virus.
I had to limit going out to once a day cause I only had 5 masks at home and you're not supposed to go out without one. I only managed to buy more masks at the end of Feb.
The atmosphere around here improved last week, when the news reported no new local cases for 7 consecutive days. I'm starting to see kids playing and people taking walks when I go downstairs to pick up packages. People actually smile at each other. And I now share the elevator with people who push buttons with their fingers instead of toothpicks. It's amazing how everyone can do a 360 based on one news report.
The government just announced they're going to re-open a section of the great wall, and life is slowly getting back to normal. But I'm apprehensive. The city I live started reporting imported cases a couple of days ago. There are a few new ones almost every day.
So far it seems like South Korea's the only country that didn't get caught with their pants down.