Quarantining

Since the plan is to stuff me into a solo apartment inside my own building, I'm not going to tempt fate by asking if a separate entrance is an absolute requirement.  The one requirement they were very plain about is that I'm 100% required to be alone inside once I enter.

Menu does appear to be weekly.  If I recall correctly, today should be one of the better days.  Emergency ramen should also be arriving today.

I wonder what's happening in Tier 2 China.

Land in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou and do 14 days quarantine, then if a future employer has their shit together you have 24 hours to to travel into Tier 2 or Tier 3 territory and hole up in some campus apartment more or less guaranteed to be significantly less comfortable re food, water, bedding, furnishings and internet. Might just be better to do 21 days in q-slam instead...

Job market right now must.... suck?



Kudos to those sticking it out.

I have heard of at least a few people deciding to stay for 21 days in their arrival hotel and get fully cleared instead of dealing with regs where they go.  In some places, the secondary isolation is for more than an additional 7 days.

In my favorite little town in Hunan, a hotel I've stayed at a number of times was turned into the official Quarantine hotel.  I'd far prefer to be there than the place I'm in now.  It really comes down to whether the person in charge wants to treat those paying for quarantine as hotel guests who must stay in their rooms vs. treating them as a literally captive audience with no right to even ask about the possibility of modest improvements in the service.

The swab fairy just visited again.  Both nostrils and the throat again.   I was sort of expecting her.  If the schedule holds, she'll be back on Saturday.

I had to take a nasal swab and get a blood test to get on the plane.  I'm slightly surprised that there hasn't been at least one additional blood test.  I really don't want to get blood drawn over and over, but I'd think they'd want one more just to be even more sure.  Then again, maybe that's going to happen on Saturday.

Once I'm moved from here to isolation, I'm hoping any new swab tests are throat only.

 

Where to start.  Let's go with Saturday.

The swab fairy returned.  One swab up each nostril and an extra thorough swabbing of the back of my throat.  I was starting to close the door so I could attempt to recover, but she wasn't done with me.

She broke out another swab that looked more like a vert short bristled test tube brush.  If you think a cotton swab up the nose is bad, be aware that there's something out there that's far far worse and it's ready to explore your sinuses.  Then she got the other nostril with one of those prickly implements, then redid my throat.

So, I was done.  All I had to do was get up on Sunday, pack, and I'd be whisked away to the safety of a private apartment in my village - and would likely only be hit by a normal swab or two during isolation week.

I'd been asking for confirmation from the hotel that all was arranged.  I also bugged my wife several times asking if everything was good on our end.  My town said they hadn't heard anything yet.  My hotel contact told me not to worry.  My wife accused me be being stupid and paranoid.

I wish my wife hadn't made that accusation.  I'm very good at figuring out potential failures before they happen.  Whenever she makes such an accusation, the odds of my worries being proven correct suddenly shift from "possible, but rather unlikely" to "brace yourself for imminent disaster."

I got up early on Sunday to finish up packing.  9 am, no car.  Hotel contact says "don't worry" and wife says "you are being stupid and paranoid."  11 am, no car.  Village health people say they are waiting to hear from town people.  Noon, no car.  Wife and hotel contact person finally begin to realize something is amiss.  Multiple calls to village and town people show zero orders.  Turns out that somehow, the message from the hotel about my release was delivered far later than it should have been and went to my city instead of town.  Car was dispatched at about 12:30, but plans had been changed.

Donguan decide that I and one other person from my hotel (Chinese, so this wasn't a special foreigner thing) needed to spend a week in a hotel inside the city.  Goodbye hot meal cooked at home.  Hello to a new round of hotel provided takeout.

The car took me and the other person away a little after 2:30.  The driver proved to be incredibly skillful. at taking detours to escape a traffic jam only to have a brand new traffic jam form in front of us.  So, instead of a 2 hour trip to the new hotel, I got to take a 3 hour trip to the hotel. 

The new room was tiny and not very clean, but I could live with that.  Dinner finally arrived (it was a no-lunch day).  Amazingly, the rice was fairly warm, unlike in the first hotel, so living with the food seemed like an option.  What I was having trouble living with was the fact that I had more than one roommate.  The roommates were quite small, but I really don't like sharing a room with roaches.

I sent pics to my wife showing the first roach I photographed and also the layer of dust on the floor.  She forwarded it to the hotel.  They sent me a mop and a broom. Then I spotted and killed another roach.  I also pointed out that if I was going to clean the room, I should be paid like the rest of the staff.  The hotel send a maid (in full bunny suit - all staff I've seen anywhere since I got on the plane back to China have been dressed that way.  She tried to sweep barely under the edge of one of the 2 small beds in the room.  I'd already stuck the broom farther in and dragged out more than she got.  I wasn't going to risk a giant roach nest under the center of one of the beds.  I think she was surprised when I grabbed the foot of the bed and lifted it up enough to expose the large pile of  . . . stuff that had accumulated under the bed since sometime in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

Eventually, both beds had their archeological treasures swept up.  She was about to run off, but I grabbed the broom and swept quite a bit more dust off the exposed areas of the floor.  She got the hint and then mopped the exposed areas of the floor.

I requested a new room, but the hotel assured me that the thorough excavation cleaning my room had just gotten was enough.  To be sure, I'd managed to convince the maid to lend me a can of bug spray.  I only used a limited amount, but even with the windows open, I was left feeling rather dizzy.  Eventually, it cleared enough for me to try sleeping.

At about 2 am I woke up.  Turning on the lights revealed 2 roaches in the floor and one on the wall not far above my pillow.  I got pics and killed all 3.  I waited until morning to send the pics to my wife.

Thankfully, they decided to move me to a new room this morning.  It's bigger and I haven't seen any roaches (yet).

Breakfast and lunch fell into the "adequate" category, which still far outshines the food at the first hotel.  I'm now on day 16 of 21 in quarantine.


So, I'm stuck here until Sunday morning.  If I was in the isolation in my village, I was going to have my wife stuff Stripy Emperor into a cat purse on Wednesday and set him down 2 meters outside my door so I could sing "Happy Birthday!" to him.  Instead, I'm still in quarantine somewhere on the south side of town.

 


Adventures and frustrations galore

Trusting your next transition goes much more smoothly

The food remains adequate.  I suppose if I hadn't had to put up with the room temperature, low qualify food at the first hotel, I'd probably give the new hotel's food a lower rating.

No roaches in the new room so far.

It's Tuesday morning.  I've got 5 days until my planned release on Sunday morning.

How's the laundry situation?

In Oz quarantine I spent a lot of time in a hotel robe and, ahem, boxers and t-shirts. Was fine until I'd had enough of the first robe, reached for the second, and found it to be a size small. Wore it anyway.

What I mean though is, the shorts and t-shirts were easy to launder in the bathroom sink, and quick to dry in the very not-humid hotel central air. A manageable workaround for staying basically sanitary for two weeks. Three might be a stretch...

The hotel I was at collected bed sheets and towels once a week too. They left replacements outside the door (with a printed sheet of instructions on how to make up a hotel bed).



Cockroaches tho.... that's a definite no thanks

Still roach free in the new room.

I did some laundry in the sink of the first hotel.  The new hotel sink looks like it would serve equally well.

Since there's zero chance of a maid bursting in, I decided to . . .  go all the way to avoid getting any more clothing dirty.  I do have a bathrobe to throw on when I grab food, get my temp taken, etc.

 


 


 

You’re more than halfway through the final week!

Those Christmas tree shaped nose swabs are no joke. My poor son and wife both got tested with those and it hurt.

With a six month old and preschooler at home I’m pretty jealous of all the time you have to sleep tbh 😉

Sadly, the schedule wasn't set up to accommodate napping or even sleeping in on weekends.  Breakfast arrived in the 7:20-8 am range every day.  Temperature checks and/or nostril probing happened about half way between breakfast and lunch, plus half way between lunch and dinner.


A few days before my release, my wife was told I'd be out at 11 on Sunday.  Then the day before, she was told I'd be released "sometime after breakfast."  She showed up at about 8:10 am, only to be told that I'd be released before lunch.  My final swab fairy visit was on Saturday morning (2 swab fairies - one for each nostril, thankfully no swabs with bristles).  I checked my health code Saturday evening.  It was still red, but had he updated negative test results.  At about 10 am, on Sunday, they brought my Quarantine Graduation Certificates for me to sign and fingerprint.  I checked my health code after they left and it was green.

The returned and tossed me out the door at 10:30.

Once I got home, my wife steamed a big plateful of pork and cabbage jiaozi for me.  After 3 weeks of food ranging from cold to modestly warm, those very hot jiaozi were the best tasting jiaozi in the history of the universe.

The cats complained that they hadn't been petted enough.  I did my best to make up for this.

So...

Anal swabs?




It's not a zero tolerance policy if they steer clear of the butt

The swab fairies at the airport and at both hotels somehow overlooked swabbing or probing anywhere near my hindquarters.

Wow. Not sure how on board we can be with this 0.1% tolerance approach

I see the strategy though. Beyond dastardly foreigners and the prissy seals they place over their prison wallets, the most obvious vector for infection are the nose pokers moving between rooms. Do they at least  change PPE every time? If they don't, any later outbreak can be pinned on "privacy".

The real People's War won't wear pants.