Landed with Symptom
- Stella Wei
- Apr 30, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: May 2, 2020
The thrilling 13 hours after backing to China
Written by: Stella Wei
Symptoms Alarms
37℃.
When the 19-year-old returned student Becky Ho was detected with such a temperature at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, everyone was having a fever at the time immediately. Even the exhausted medical staff who had been in high-intensity work tightened their bodies.
At ordinary times, this may only mean that she had a low fever; but during the epidemic period, it was a dangerous sign suggesting a possibility of infecting the coronavirus.
According to data from the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China, 39 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in China on March 22, all of them were imported from abroad. On the same day, the Guangzhou Municipal Government issued an announcement that all personnel entering Guangzhou from abroad must accept coronavirus testing.
Hence, she then had been immediately taken aside to re-measured her body temperature for several times. Fortunately, the temperature dropped and fell into the normal 36℃.
But she was still required to accept coronavirus testing, with an oropharyngeal swab and nasopharyngeal swab taken simultaneously.
"It was uncomfortable during the test and made me in tears at the time. I just wanted it to end as soon as possible."
Becky still felt a bit of nausea in her throat when she recalls. And because her body temperature has exceeded the normal range for the first time, she was taken two more tubes of blood for sampling.
The result of the testing came out at 10:00 a.m., the next day. Luckily, the test result was negative. Becky thought she was having a fever at the time because of the lack of good rest during the whole flight and the sultry weather in Guangzhou.
Vignettes during the Pending Results
She was one of the hundred passengers who went through a 15-hour trip by plane to return to China from the United States at 3:30 p.m., March 23, and most of them were Asian faces. In order to get protection during the severe COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of passengers were wearing tight protective clothing, masks, and goggles.
Becky couldn’t have a good rest for two days before returning to China out of a mix of excitement and anxiety about the unknown journey. The bumpy journey on the plane also made her hardly fall asleep. The long time nervousness caused the headache, and she reported her situation honestly when being asked to fill out a health form after getting off the flight.
When she finished the serial tests for two hours, she and other passengers waited for another more 7 hours. At 9:00 p.m., she got the food distributed by staff: a jar of eight-treasure porridge, a bag of soda biscuits, and a bottle of water, which was her "first meal back home". She could only dare to stay away from the crowd, took off her mask and ate quickly when she was really hungry.
“I had to hold on, I couldn’t fall down before reaching the hotel."
She was on pins and needles because her passport was temporally withheld by the customs officers during the previous tests. Everything was unknown; even the waiting time seemed endless. Everyone in that waiting room was very anxious, bounded by a sultry mask and goggles, surrounded by a noisy and restless crowd—it was not easy to calm down.
The time slipped to midnight when she finally got her luggage and passport. A staff led them to a boarding gate and waited for the bus to pick them up.
Instead of the bus, three ambulances rushed with a hasty whistle at about 1:00 a.m., Becky was shocked and felt a little helpless at the time, wondering if the ambulances were to take her.
"Did I have to spend the first night back home in the hospital for isolation?"
While she was preparing to accept fate, she found out that the ambulance was actually coming to pick someone else—a great relief—there were infected people founded on a landed plane. She witnessed seven or eight people were sent to ambulances.
Three ambulances came to pick infected people at about 1:00 a.m. Photo by: Becky Ho
When Becky finally arrived at the quarantine hotel, it was 4:30 a.m. 13 hours has passed after she landed in Guangzhou.
Becky took off her mask and hat immediately when she got in the hotel room—she couldn’t bear wearing these protective suits any longer. As she had been wearing a mask and hat for nearly 30 hours, her face was so numb from the pressure that she couldn't even feel the mask. And her body was sweaty like she had been pulled out from the water.
Exhausted though, she was unable to fall asleep after taking a shower—the situation of the US when she left kept coming to her mind.
Leave and Stay
Becky was in her freshman year when she studies at Boston University, United States.
Unexpectedly, the outbreak in the United States became severe at the end of February. On the day she left the United States, on March 23, there were a total of 33276 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States and a total of 417 deaths according to the statistics of Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Four hundred people were diagnosed in Massachusetts, where Becky lived.
On March 24, due to evolving spread of COVID-19 in Massachusetts, Governor Baker has directed the Department of Public Health to issue a stay at home advisory outlining self-isolation and social distancing protocols. Residents were advised to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel and other unnecessary activities during this two-week time period.
The epidemic situation in the US continues to worsen. In April, when a month has passed after she returned to China, the number of confirmed cases in the United States has reached nearly 1 million.
Becky still remains optimistic about resuming study in the US after the pandemic. She tells the Quarantine Dairy project group that the U.S. school year has not yet been set and may not start until January 2021. And she is currently taking online courses at home and can also spend the summer holiday in China.
The pseudonym was applied for protecting the character in this article
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