Coronavirus – Chronicle of a quarantine foretold (Part II)

[After having experienced the initial days of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, Zhang Xinxin, a journalist initially scheduled to start working in the SAR for Macau News Agency (MNA) on February 3, recalls her days under medical observation in the US]

Jan 20th, San Francisco, USA

In the early morning of Monday, January 20th, I left Wuhan with two colleagues for a short business trip. We transferred to Shanghai airport and landed in San Francisco Airport on the same day. While waiting in the massive queue to pass through Customs, I noticed screens in the airport displaying warnings of Wuhan coronavirus in both English and Chinese languages.

My colleagues and I had read the news that a few major U.S. airports had started to screen people traveling from Wuhan, so when we finally reached our turn at the Customs point and were asked to follow an airport staff to get checked, it was not too much of a surprise.

We were taken to a small space, separated by a thick curtain, where we were asked to fill out a questionnaire about our recent health conditions and have our temperature checked by a nurse. All of us showed no sign of fever or other symptoms at that time and we were released for entry after waiting in a specified space for another hour.

We stayed in San Francisco Airport for another two hours before we took our next connecting flight to Florida for our first business visit. While waiting in the airport, I received quite a few messages from my friends back in China who were unaware that I had left Wuhan, asking me how I was doing.

Those messages made me check the latest news on the Wuhan coronavirus and I found out that was a day the attention to the outbreak was significantly raised to a different level domestically, as President Xi made a remark on the situation, along with the public statement made by the respected Chinese scientist Zhong Nanshan, who led in the combat with SARS back in 2003.

But now, we were on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so the events back home still felt distant.

Jan 21st – 24th Florida, USA

The weather was notably warmer and pleasant in Florida. We had a free day prior to the scheduled meetings with our business partner, so we decided to go out. We took an Uber and our driver for that ride was a young, friendly and talkative American who had served in the Air Force in England and was now in Florida.

After learning that we were from China, he asked us about the situation in HK and told us he wishes to travel there one day, as well as other parts of Asia. He mentioned nothing about the coronavirus in Wuhan, nor did it occur to any of us that the topic would be something people here would bring up.

But later that day, towards the evening, we received a last-minute notice from our business partner that they needed to cancel all of our scheduled visits and change to online meetings. At first, we felt it was a little bit over the top, but very soon we started to sense the rising attention to the Wuhan situation from top-down level in US. The next day, we received some N95 masks as gifts from our business partner.

Meanwhile, news about the coronavirus has been soaring on Chinese News Media and growing concern and fear is starting to be widespread on WeChat. My colleagues and I were also closely watching the latest information on the outbreak every day, while anxiously monitoring our own health. We had avoided close personal contact with others, bought a couple of thermometers and a handful of hand sanitisers from a local supermarket. We started to check our temperatures frequently, and any minor body discomfort would cause suspicions among us.

While it was relatively serene in the U.S., what we were seeing from the Chinese sources about the coronavirus in Wuhan on a daily basis, such as the quarantine of the entirety of Wuhan, then entirety of Hubei, the shortage of marks and preventive equipment, overwhelmed medical workers and hospitals and the extremely fast-growing rate of confirmed cases had created some stress for us; particularly my colleague, whose family is in Wuhan.

I was particularly concerned about a Portuguese friend and I had been in touch with him on an almost daily basis. I learned that he was stuck in Wuhan. He basically had nowhere to go besides staying in his dorm and was reluctant to visit a hospital even when he felt a bit ill for fear of indifference and cross infection.

I learned that he had been communicating with other Portuguese in the city intensively to share the latest information as well as adding pressure to the Portuguese embassy for evacuation. But due to the suspension of virtually all mobile transportation, as well as the lockdown of the airport in Wuhan, any international action has been extremely challenging to implement.

Jan 25th – 27th, Indiana, USA

On January 25th, we flew to Indiana to visit another business partner in that States. Unlike Florida, January in Indiana is cold and quiet, within one day we experienced the change from 75 ℉ to 30 ℉ (24℃ to -1℃).

Due to precautions, all of the scheduled offline visits in Indiana were also cancelled and changed to online meetings. Meanwhile, we start seeing news about the U.S. extending measures for risk control of Wuhan coronavirus, such as ordering more U.S. airports to screen travelers from China, particularly those with travel history in Wuhan, as well as issuing a level 3 travel warning to China.

News about the Wuhan Outbreak was reported on the TV in the hotel we stayed in, though still remained low profile locally, amidst other headlines including President Trump’s Impeachment and the tragic death of the former NBA icon Kobe Bryant.

On Monday morning, January 27th, I woke up feeling tired, cold, and with a little bit of a headache. The first thing I did after getting out of bed was to check my body temperature, 99.3 ℉, the highest temperature since I came to the U.S. I converted the measuring unit to Celsius and learned that I was at the edge of a low fever.

Though feeling a bit sick, I still did my best to finish the online meeting that morning. I then rushed to my room to check my temperature again. The number had risen to 99.8 ℉ and I had a cough. The next thing I did was call the U.S. contact person who had invited me and my colleagues for lunch to tell him that I can no longer join them, as I need to isolate myself while being sick.

After he asked about my symptoms, he told me I should go to the hospital and suggested to visit an urgent care clinic. But one of my colleagues suggested that I take some fever-reducing medicine and wait to see if I got better later. I thought over these two options and decided I’d be better safe than sorry, so I put my mask on, and the U.S. contact person came to pick me up and drive me to the nearest urgent care clinic.

I reported my situation to the center staff, one of them made a phone call then told us that I needed to go to the regional hospital where they are able to work closer with the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), so we did that.

After arriving at the regional hospital and explaining my situation, I was taken by a fully protected nurse to do some preliminary tests and was given some fever-reducing pills. Later, I was transferred to a vacuum room for sample collection while waiting for further instruction from the CDC.

After a few hours’ waiting, I was told that I would be admitted to be hospitalized until my test results were received from the CDC.

The last temperature check while waiting showed my fever was gone but that didn’t change my fate to be admitted to the hospital indefinitely per the command from CDC until all my sample tests have confirmed results.

The same night I was transported to an ICU room of the hospital by an ambulance for observation. A doctor came in to speak to me that night before I went to sleep. He asked me about the details of my symptoms as well as my last days in Wuhan then he said what I was experiencing would probably be as worse as I can get, but there is a good chance that I had been infected by the virus.

Jan 28th – Jan 31, Porter Regional Hospital, Indiana, U.S.

The next day I woke up feeling much better. I had slept with lines and tube attached all over me to the bedside monitor: blood pressure cuff, saturation monitor, sensors for heart rate and an infusion tube for IV fluid.

Later, a nurse wearing a mask, a pair of sealed glasses and protective garment came in to check on me, asked how I was doing and checked my temperature again; all was normal. I asked him how long I’m expected to stay in the hospital, then was told the results should come back by tomorrow at the latest and if the tests came out negative, I can be released instantly, otherwise they’ll have to follow CDC’s instructions on what’s next.

At first, only my fellow colleagues and my friend who is our U.S. contact person knew about my situation. Very soon, all of my colleagues received phone calls from the state department of health to check on their condition and activities and that friend was asked by the institution he was part of to self-monitor at home until we have my results.

Later that morning, I got to know that my case was already reported on the local newspaper as mine was one of the first suspected case of coronavirus in the state of Indiana.

I was worried, of course, not only for my health, but also about my plan next. I had booked a flight to go to Macau from Chicago on January 30th to start my new job as a journalist with Macau News Agency (MNA) on Feb 3rd, but then my situation became rather vague.

I texted the human resource personnel from my new employer about my situation and found out it was not much better in Macau. Many flights to Macau were being canceled and mainland travelers are being limited for entry due to precautions of the outbreak. Later, I was connected to an editor from MNA who asked me if I could write a chronicle about my experiences from Wuhan to the U.S. and I accepted.

There was not much to do being in the hospital, particularly my mobility was limited to the single unit I was staying in, as all the lines and tubes have to be removed manually in order to get out of the bed. I tried to watch TV but found nothing interesting.

I didn’t bring a book or even a notebook for reading and writing, and I had avoided talking to my family about my situation to not make them too worried. Besides writing for this Chronicle, I mainly just slept and kept checking on the news about the coronavirus: Things are getting worse each day with more diagnoses and related deaths.

Meanwhile, I was taken good care of by the nurses and doctors at the hospital, 24/7, though apparently I was rather unique from the other patients they have ever worked within ICU. One nurse told me that I was too independent (commenting about my overall good health condition) that she doesn’t know what to do.

But my results have been delayed again and again, I didn’t get it by the next day, as assumed by the nurse, didn’t get it by the next next day, as told by the doctor and didn’t get it by the end of Thursday, per the most conservative estimate.

However, I did start feeling better and more lively each day and almost all of the symptoms I experienced earlier were gone. The nurses even allowed me to stay monitor free for most of the time and I didn’t get a fever again all the rest of the days.

Thursday was the fourth day I was in the hospital. In the late afternoon, I received two books as gifts from the Head of ICU saying, “sorry” that I had to be stuck in the hospital. Later, I received another three books from the Head Nurse thanking me for being “a very patient and nice patient.”

All five books were memoirs because when one of the nurses asked what she can get me to pass time, I told her I like reading non-fiction. Upon receiving the books, I was deeply moved by the hospital staffs’ thoughtfulness and sweetness. Indeed, their kindness and genuine care has lightened up my time in the hospital, which would be rather gloomy and frustrating otherwise.

I told them how bad the situation is now in China and that I’m actually feeling lucky and thankful to receive such personalized attention and care while many do not have such resources available to them and are in a much worse place. By then, I already didn’t have any more fears, regardless of how my results would turn out because I knew I was in good hands and there are families and friends who are near and far to support me.

I slept soundly a little bit past midnight that night. The next morning when I woke up, I heard the doctor and nurse come in the room without having their masks on anymore. “I guess you already know the reason I’m here,” said the doctor with a smile, “your test results in the CDC are finally out and all of them showed negative. You are perfectly healthy and you are good to go today.”

“Yeaaah!” I cheered, though the news didn’t come as too much of a surprise to me, as I have been feeling very well in the past days. Nevertheless, a reluctant adventure finally comes to an end and my soul is eased from the prolonged wondering. Immediately, I told all of my friends who have been watching my situation that I’m fine and called my U.S. contact person friend to come and pick me up from the hospital. One hour later, my friend came with his car.

Because of the policy in ICU, I still needed to be discharged on a wheelchair by the nurse. When we reached the ground floor, I saw a pleasant, clear day waiting outside the glass door of the main exit. There, I was finally allowed to stand up on my own, so I got up from the wheelchair, smiled, turned around to give my nurse a hug, said thank you and goodbye.

[Written by Zhang Xinxin, edited by Nelson Moura]