Finally some positive news? China has reported a decrease in new cases being discovered consistently over the last five days as it looks like the “stay at home” attitude is starting to see results. It has now been over two weeks since I last left the community and this is a similar case for most people within Hefei, with the vast majority of people staying at home and avoiding any form of human contact with outsiders. As a result, today is the first day that there have been no new cases discovered in Hefei, great news for the city and for everyone living here. I am hoping that this news will be the beginning of the control of the outbreak, I am under no illusion that this will suddenly be a quick ending, but at least it shows a level of progress and gives some sense of optimism.
The last few days have begun to get increasingly mentally difficult, focusing on anything productive is nearly impossible and despite making it outside every day for a run, the sense of cabin fever is really kicking in. We are both finding it hard to keep the negative thoughts out at times, which isn’t too surprising, but we’re keeping well and after today’s news, a beer delivery and some decent Netflix series, our moods have been lifted.
The virus seems to be spreading around the World, more now than it had previously with countries including South Korea really struggling to deal with it. We are reading more about the virus again now after the lull in news over the past week, it seems it has certainly picked up again. Questions over what will happen when I do return remain unanswered, from what I can gather I will self quarantine for 14 days as a minimum, however I am sure that as things develop and undoubtedly get worse in Europe and the UK, I will go into controlled quarantine. This would be a fair and appropriate response to controlling the spread of the virus, I would have no issues with entering forced quarantine should I be required to.
There’s still no update from the UK Foreign Office and their advice hasn’t changed. As it stands the airline I am due to fly with, Lufthansa, should resume flights at the end of the month, so until then I’m just going to sit tight and wait for a re-booking. With the travel situation being so unstable, trying to get home seems far to risky as getting caught out in another city at this point would be a disaster and cause all sorts of problems.
Ben In China 