{SHANGHAI ~ January – March, 2020}
Although half of the face was covered by a mask, eyes can tell you everything! When I looked into peoples eyes I saw a mix of fear, hope and empathy – because we all go through the same, we all don’t know what it means and and we all don’t know how long it will last for. Those very very toughing moments.
In general I was very busy with work during the lock-down. Day after day passed by and it sometimes happened that I didn’t know what day it was. I got up, made some coffee, opened my laptop, plugged in my headphones and was mainly in calls until late evening; fell into my bad just to repeat the same scenario a few hours later again and again.
I was very exhausted by work, not so much by the fact being locked into my apartment. I still had my list of things to do.
It’s the extended week of Chinese New Year holiday, the week of February 3rd. China just started to move towards the peak of the virus while the rest of the world was sending Corona jokes around. It’s not funny when you’re directly impacted by the situation and you receive jokes from people that are not impacted at all [at least at that point of time].
There were a few things that helped me to rationalize going thru the situation and the lock-down:
The facts about the virus and its incubation time of 14 days made it logical to me that it can be easily spread without recognizing it. So if you do the maths and you look at the number of infected cases day by day, you can conclude that it will continue like that if no measures are set up.
For me, what China did was the right thing to do: lock down the cities and advise everyone to stay inside. I was hoping that when everyone stays inside, the spread of the virus might get under control – flatten the curve!
In China, this is easier to control and get thru. No one is questioning whether or not it’s correct that the door guy can measure my temperature, or that I enter my name, phone number and temperature in an open list before I enter a restaurant. I didn’t question it and I still don’t question it. At the end I have a choice: I either enter my data or I stay at home. As easy as that.
