Aussie Tales of the "Rona" in 2020!

G'day from Australia! We live in Port Macquarie, New South Wales and just over a year ago took over a Bed & Breakfast only 200m from Lighthouse Beach - such a dream come true since touring in Europe on our honeymoon in 1997 and falling in love with the concept of B&B's and hosting people from around the world! We've been absolutely loving welcoming guests from 30 different countries since taking over - we have such a beautiful gift to share this part of the world with them. My passion is helping each guest to have a memorable story to share and precious moments to cherish when they return home. We had months of bookings disappear in a matter of days once the borders were closed and we were placed into a lockdown mode in March of this year... as a Bed & Breakfast we were legally only allowed to host essential workers or for compassionate reasons (persons without a fixed address temporarily due to not being able to travel home). Was quite a shock to see all that we knew to be to just disappear and shift within a blink of an eye... and a 'new normal' was upon us.

We had a couple from Germany that was with us for a few nights as this started unfolding and they extended a few more nights as we all waited for what the travel directions would be... they tried to move their flight home but were unsuccessful and thus had 3 more weeks still here in Australia. As we discussed options of how much they could travel from Port Macquarie to see for day trips - this too was cut short with increasing restrictions and only essential reasons to leave your home was enforced. 

No hay mal que por bien no venga / Silver linings

I would recommend running the below text through Google translate or similar (if you’re reading this with Google Chrome it might come as an automatic option), to better understand this very open tale of how the lockdown helped Lorena recover her mental health, rediscover herself and grow in self-confidence and strengthen her relationship with her daughter. At the end of it there’s a summary in English.

Hoy tengo ganas de escribir, hace semanas mi primita Cristina me preguntó si quería participar y la verdad que me gustó la idea… lo único que me ha parado ha sido que me daba miedo escribir toda la historia porque se convertiría en una realidad de la que a veces queremos huir… pero en este caso os cuento mi relato, mi historia breve de estos meses atrás en los que no sabíamos que iba a pasar ni como íbamos acabar cada uno de nosotros..

Volviendo más o menos a las primeras semanas de marzo… cuando todo explotó… y nos declararon en estado de alarma y nos dijeron cada uno a su casa y no salgáis. Con todas esas noticias de gente muriendo, gente desesperada por salvar a esas personas, pánico por todos lados … vamos una locura que no podíamos adivinar qué iba a suceder… a mi me pilló vamos con un ataque de pánico porque sabia que si enfermaba estaba en lo cierto que no saldría… porque… ¿por qué pensaba así? Porque tengo una enfermedad muy importante más muchas otras cositas que acabarían complicando mi vida si yo enfermaba. Soy diabética, con problemas de alergias, con asma, más algunas pequeñas tonterías que no me ayudaban en mucho… pero ahora viendo todo después de estos meses mi problema no era ese … era la tristeza.

Pues eso, entré en estado de pánico... lloraba porque tenía mucho miedo de enfermar, lloraba ante la incertidumbre de no saber qué iba a pasar… no entendía porque ahora tenía tanto miedo de morir si meses antes era lo único que deseaba porque mi vida no tenía ningún sentido y me castigaba yo misma y me culpaba de muchas cosas de mi pasado. Estaba perdida, me sentía hecha pedazos y pensaba que le hacía un favor a todos los que me rodeaban. Es cierto que diez días antes de empezar toda mi vida empezaba a cambiar... me sentía con más energía, comenzaba otra vez a coger las riendas de mi vida … y todo me cayó encima como una bomba y pensaba “no puede ser ahora que salgo del pozo me vuelven a meter obligada”.

Romantic Quarantine

My name is Dania. I am Mexican, living in Porto (Portugal) where I am doing a PhD in Sustainable Energy. I am at the last year of my research. For me it is very easy to stay in lockdown, as that has been my last year of Thesis.  Every moment is an opportunity to finish the research. Therefore, the quarantine has been a great chance to advance as much as possible.

I have my worries and demons about the whole infection (as everyone else). I’m nervous about the harm to the health and the economy, however my story is a bit more romantic….

I was working in Spain for two weeks when the COVID outbreak was about to start. With the precautions in mind, me and the research team I was working with decided not to go out from our hotel and work from there.  It was very tempting to go out and take a look at Barcelona without waves of tourist, however we didn't go out much, but I am so much looking forward to visiting Barcelona when all this craziness is over!

After that project was done; I went to Germany where I quarantined with my boyfriend and his family. It was nice to get to know each other, even under stress. It was also risky. The result could be an amazing relationship or simply a disaster, as we have not been together for a long time (we are a new couple).

Is it here?

IS IT HERE?

This is what is happening right now in Buon Ma Thuot city - a zero-Covid 19 case area in the Central Highlands of Vietnam: children going to school, parents going to work as usual, coffee shops full of relaxing people and few masks. 

Nearly one month after the social distancing restrictions were lifted, Vietnamese people are now practicing with the so-called “living with the pandemic and sustaining economic development”. What reminds people of Covid-19 are free santinizers in the door way of “Phở” restaurants, red footsteps prints in supermarkets, messages of caution from the MOH in the ringtone of any mobile phones... 

Covid Contemplations (part 1)

I was in Mexico City visiting my parents when I started hearing about coronavirus. And toilet paper shortages in the US...

I am originally from Mexico City, but have lived in the US for the past 20 years, now residing in San Diego, California, with my husband and my 2 boys (11 and 14 years old). I flew back from CDMX to SD on March 7th, just to realize that what was a non event in Mexico (yet), was already a huge deal in the US. I had barely enough time to get up to speed before schools closed on March 13th (they will not reopen until the next school year, if at all). My last day of work was March 14th (I teach Pilates. As of today, June 2nd, all gyms are still closed). I had a brief meltdown over toilet paper until I realized I had enough. My boys will probably be using the last covid roll in 2032.

There is so much to say about how things are. How they were. How they have changed. How they will be... Some things bother me. Others don’t. Some are superficial and others have deeper roots... I will just throw my ideas out there, randomly...

Life: instead of worrying, I have focused on enjoying this simple life. I went from being a part time single parent (hubby used to travel a lot), going at 350 km/h, always giving 130%, chronically tired, to a more normal person (“normal” is debatable, though), with a more natural rhythm. No more alarm clock at 5:15am. No more running on tight and rigid schedules.

Thoughts of a Kazakh in Portugal

Portugal is one of the few countries of Europe which controlled the spread of virus in the early stage based on the lessons of the neighbour European countries such as Spain and Italy. Introducing the emergency state and confinement measures in the earlier stage was crucial in having less cases in Portugal. 

According to my perceptions, the Portuguese people were disciplined during the state of emergency. I remember at the end of March, middle of April, when I passed over the main public and crowdy places in Porto such as Ribeira, Aliados, Matosinhos, they were totally empty. It seemed the city is totally sleeping. People were blocked at their houses in Porto, while others went to stay at the villages around Porto city. Finally, 2nd of May the emergency state finished and the Portuguese Goverment issued a 3-stage plan to reopen the economy and facilitate the restrictions. 

Today is 30th May, 2020, when the second stage is almost over. The small shops, restaurants, bookstores, establishments providing personal hygiene services (hairdressers, barbers) are open by previous appointment and maintenance of the security measures. Next Monday, from 1 June, the 3rd stage will start with opening stores with an area greater than 400 m2 and stores inserted in shopping centres. 

Greetings from Luxembourg!

Where to start?

We are the lucky ones. I used to tell people around me, the ones who complain, that we, people of Luxembourg, are really lucky. There are not so many cases, hospitals are ready for us, our families are OK, and no it's not war. We have access to internet, good food, online shopping ... I live in a house with a garden. And could you imagine that the government pays for the salaries of parents who have children so they can take care of them as long as the schools are closed? 

But yes, really, sincerely, this situation is insane. I hope sometimes that I will wake up and all this mess has faded away. I wonder when my parents, who live abroad, will hold my little daughter in their arms. But thankfully we have WhatsApp! 

I'm not scared. I respect confinement, I respect social distance, wear my mask, wash my hands carefully... I'm a doctor so I fully understand what to do. I've seen worse on individuals during my "hospital years" but the fact is that it's a sanitary disaster to have so many people suffering at the same time.

Colorful Colorado

Welcome to Colorful Colorado! I live in the Denver metro area, which has had the majority of Colorado’s 20,000 plus cases. The state has had over a thousand deaths. We were an early hot spot, thanks to our internationally renowned ski slopes. The high country had it worse at first, but most of the cases are now in the metro areas around Denver and Colorado Springs, where my parents live. Our governor, Jared Polis, acted pretty quickly to get the outbreak under control. Our statewide stay at home order started March 26th, though several counties were ahead of him. Governor Polis lifted the Stay at Home order on April 27th for a Safer at Home program. This lifted the restrictions on some business, while still leaving strict social distancing orders in place. Restaurants and bars are still not open here for anything other than take-away. And gyms, theatres, and other social places are still closed.

Walking around the village in England

I’ve been incredibly lucky this spring – I got married last year and we had trips and activities planned for most of the 2019 and the beginning of 2020, but we didn’t have anything booked or planned for the spring except for one theatre trip. My husband was in a production of Rent that had to be played online; I was in a production of Sister Act that’s been postponed to next year, but the other play I was in went ahead just before the lockdown, and my first story-telling event at the Coffin Works, Birmingham was in February, so I’ve been lucky there too. I feel so, so sorry for everyone whose wedding has been cancelled this year and I feel like we’ve had a really lucky escape!

I stepped off a plane, and into the French lockdown

Hello everyone my name is Maria Teresa!

Okay where to start? For me my quarantine started on 22 March. I'm with my parents in Vannes (Brittany)... I was supposed to be with my older sister but things didn’t go as planned and yes I was really upset.... I was traveling before the quarantine and I had so many plans for when I was going to come back and all that was ruined because of the corona. 

So I came back to France on 21 March from a holiday in Australia and New Zealand, and I was supposed to pass the weekend in Paris with a friend and after the weekend go with my older sister near Lyon. I was going to be there for a couple of days and then comeback to Brittany to see some friends and my family before to heading to the island where I work in a restaurant... But yes all this never happened by my bad luck... So instead of spending a nice weekend in Paris, and good moments with my old sister and my nieces I followed the instructions to go straight to Brittany with my parents for the quarantine... 

Greetings from Kentucky!

Hello from the United States – remote western Kentucky to be exact. I live on the shores of Kentucky Lake and I’m thankful that the dreaded Coronavirus has not hit our area too badly yet. Our entire county has about 32,000 residents and so far we only have 12 documented cases here.  I consider us lucky. That is not to say we haven’t been cautious – we wear masks and gloves any time we go out in public. My mom lives in Chicago and she happened to be here visiting me when the virus hit, so we decided it would be better for her to stay with me and ride this out.  So far her 2 week visit has turned into 8 weeks. I think we made a wise decision.

My son is a dietitian and his wife is a nurse, and they both work in major hospitals in the Chicago area. Both of their units have been turned into Coronavirus units and they are dealing with it on the front lines so to speak, on a daily basis. The population of Cook County where they are located is just over 5 million and so far there have been almost 19,000 confirmed cases there. My son’s daily work commute normally takes him over half an hour on a major expressway in bumper to bumper traffic. Last week he told me that there was only one other car driving down the road at the same time for as far as he could see. That is unheard of for Chicago!

38 Days at Home - A Spanish Coronavirus Lockdown Story

Cristina, also known as CrazyCris, decided to be true to her name and had the crazy idea of creating a digital story about her quarantine time in Alicante, Spain. Please be kind, it's a first attempt at this kind of thing! 
(text below the break is the video transcript in case of poor internet connection, or for ease of translation to another language. Includes links to posts that illustrate certain parts of the story)

If you want to know more about the lockdown in Alicante, Spain, CrazyCris is blogging daily (or almost) during this Covid-19 health crisis in her "Coronadiaries" posts on her main blog (she has 3!) Here and There and Everywhere. Visitors are welcome!

In the beginning...

... there was a blogger who liked to write, had many thoughts and adventures to share, but little time or energy to do so. Then the world stopped. 

Welcome to 2020. The year a virus brought the world to a stand-still. A virus found in (possibly) bats got transmitted to a pangolin (or similar other mammal) that was sold in a live animal food market in Wuhan, China, and from there made the leap to human (very generalized version of the current April 2020 hypothesis) and then from person to person, causing the respiratory disease designated as Covid-19 (a.k.a. severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). This is not the first zoonosis from a coronavirus to start in Asia (SARS in 2003, MERS in 2012, etc.), and probably won't be the last. 

From Wuhan travelers spread it to other parts of China, and other countries. The first sick people appeared to be isolated cases, either arriving directly from Wuhan or having been in contact with someone who had been there. Then people who had been in contact with someone else who got sick. Then shit hit the fan. It became apparent that you didn't have to be showing symptoms to transmit the virus and things got scary. Some people exposed to the virus had mild symptoms (mild fever, coughing), others so serious (pneumonia) they required hospitalization. Country by country the number of positive cases grew exponentially. Hospital intensive care units were swamped. We had no natural immunity or vaccine to protect us from it, no tailored medication to fight it. "Social Distancing" and "proper and frequent hand washing" were on everyone's lips. We were sent home to stay safe and help keep others safe. To slow down the spread of the virus and give our healthcare professionals, our scientists and our governments time to find a solution. 

We found ourselves in a scenario most people imagined only happened in disaster movies. We panicked and flocked to the grocery stores to stock up on whatever we might need to stay home for however long was required, resulting in the great toilet paper crisis of 2020.

Some people were home alone, others with their families, some with their flat/house mates. Some people were able to continue to do their jobs from home, as best they could depending on the demands of family, internet availability, or health. Others were not so lucky and were sent home without a job, some still paid for a while by their employers, others depending on government subsidies, others with no financial support at all. And then there were those who had to go work everyday, to keep things running for everyone. To care for the sick, the elderly. To provide food, medicines, masks. To manufacture or transport essential goods where needed. To search for a solution to protect everyone from the virus. Too often without the proper protective gear to ensure their own safety.

At one point at least one third of the global population was under some form of lockdown, with varying conditions from country to country. In some places people were under strict instructions not to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary (for food, medicine, take out the trash, walk the dog...), and even then as little as possible. In others they were allowed to spend up to an hour a day outside for exercise. Some countries had strict enforcement and hefty fines for breaking the quarantine, while in others it was just a strong government recommendation. 

We started out skeptical ("Outbreak in some distant country? I feel bad for them, thank goodness it won't happen here"), to worried but confident ("More news about that virus? Some people here have got it! Fortunately it's just isolated cases and everything is under control"), to shock ("How did the situation here deteriorate so quickly?!"), to anger ("Why hasn't my government done anything yet?!" or "Why did my government wait so long to order a lockdown / increase testing / obtain protective equipment?!" "What are those idiots doing breaking the quarantine?!"), to impatience and frustration ("How long do we have to stay locked in? Why can't we do X/Y/Z? It's not like I could get sick") to worried acceptance and hope that it would soon be over ("The first thing I'm going to do when I get out is...").

Schools closed, education at all levels migrated online. Students, teachers, parents... all had to adapt to the new reality: teachers had to figure out how to adapt their materials and deliver lessons remotely, students had to adapt to not being able to engage with their teachers or classmates and learn more independently, parents had to adapt to some degree of homeschooling. But not all had the necessary tools and means to do so. So for some students classes continued remotely, ranging from materials to read and homework to do, to interactive classes using videoconference tools. For others, nothing. The big question was how to evaluate the end of the academic year? General passing grades? Papers to be turned in? Online exams somehow? By some miracle face-to-face exams back in school?

With theaters, cinemas, concert halls and gyms closed, culture and sport migrated online as well. Free concerts would pop up either live through social media or a streaming of past events. Some films were released directly to paying streaming platforms (while others saw their release dates pushed back by several months). Athletes and gym instructors shared workout routines in videos, sometimes live as well. Religious services? Streamed over the internet, including the Pope's Easter Mass in an empty Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome. Having a drink with friends? Video conference calls! 

Loved ones were lost, sometimes alone, and almost always without family or friends having the chance to say a proper farewell.

Neighbours came together from their balconies, windows, doorsteps, and clapped for essential workers, sang birthday songs (among others), or danced like crazy... 

A global pandemic has shown us just how connected we all are, wherever we are. So the blogger thought she'd invite family, friends, colleagues - anyone interested really - to share their stories of this time, and maybe be inspired by each other. Or share a few laughs. Or tears. All in good company.

Welcome to the Global Coronadiaries.