Our new normal since COVID-19

I’ve been asked a lot lately, by friends back in the US, how things are going here in South Korea.  They are hoping I say that everything is back to normal, that schools have been reopened and people can walk the streets without fear.  People want to hear this because they are hoping that things will soon return to normal for them too.  They want a light at the end of the tunnel.  I’m sorry to say that nothing has returned to normal.  We have just redefined our normal.  This is the new normal.

It is April 3.  Our kids haven’t been in a classroom since February 21.  That’s 6 weeks, but I count it as 8, because they were out of school Feb 7-16, also for COVID-19.    The school is now saying it will be closed for the foreseeable future.  There is no end date.

Starting in mid-March I had to start driving into the office.  I had been working from home until some paperwork got in order, but the waiting ended.  The first day I drove in, I was terrified.  I didn’t want to touch anything.  I wore a mask, even though no one else did.  I saw the tables of hand sanitizer stationed throughout the building, mainly on either side of doors.  Go in a door, squirt some hand sanitizer.  Come out the door, squirt some hand sanitizer.  There were lots of papers to sign that first day.  I noticed that everyone carried their own pen.  No communal pens.  There were canisters of Clorox or Lysol wipes for periodic wiping down of desks, keyboards, phones, arm rests, mice, etc.  One day I was invited to come to a meeting.  I filed in the room with everyone else and then the leader looked around and realized there were more than 20 people in the room.  He excused everyone deemed nonessential to the conversation, to get it down to less than 20.  For the first few days, I walked all the way out to my car to eat lunch.  It was the only place I felt safe to take my mask off.  At the end of each day, I wipe down my steering wheel, gear shift, door handles, and ignition.

Driving into work, I’m stopped each time at the entrance to answer a questionnaire.  Have I been to any of the hotspots?  Have I left the country in the past 14 days?  Do I have any symptoms?  Have I been in contact with anyone known to have COVID-19?  And, because I live in Incheon, which is considered a hotspot due to the international airport, I get pulled over for a second round of questions.  And finally, I get my temperature taken.  Recently, they have started the questionnaire by telling me that if I am caught lying it is a chargeable offense.  And one day this past week, my second round of questions included asking me my whereabouts for the past 2 weeks.  I am not allowed to eat out, or go to bars, clubs, or anywhere people gather.  Which is fine, because I haven’t done those things since January.  I am only really allowed to leave my residence if the reason is considered essential: picking up groceries or essential items, or going to the doctor.  Otherwise, home to work and back to home.

About 4 days after I started driving into work, we got word that COVID-19 had finally hit the expat community here in our town.  Somehow, until then, we had still managed to see it as something happening to people around us, but not exactly to us.  I didn’t even know the people that got it, but they work with people we are friends with, so it affected them and therefore us, by proxy.  The confirmed patients actually didn’t even contract it here in Korea.  They had flown, the 3 of them, to Geneva, Switzerland, for a business meeting, and all 3 of them had contracted it there, but didn’t test positive for it until they got back.  They put everyone in their office under quarantine, which meant their families too.  I got a text from one of the mothers last week, asking how we were doing.  I said fine and asked how she was doing.  She let on that she was only halfway through their 14-day quarantine, during which they were not allowed to leave their apartments for any reason.  I asked her if she had enough food, and, if not, could she get it delivered?  She said she could get food delivered, but they were running out of fresh vegetables and milk.  Could I get her some?  Of course.  I picked up what she needed and then put it outside her door.  I rang the bell and left before she answered.  No contact means no contact.  

Before then, we had let ourselves occasionally have contact with others.  Willow went to a friend’s house a couple times.  Maya went to a friend’s house once.  I drove with a friend to a plant nursery to get new pots and dirt for repotting.  We even had a family over for St. Patrick’s Day.  After the expat community had officially been hit by COVID-19, all playdates ended.  No more gatherings, of any size.

What is it like when we go shopping?  If I have to have the kids with me, there is a lecture that happens before we leave the apartment.  Keep your mask on at all times.  Do not touch anything.  Keep your hands in your pockets.  If you have to hit the elevator buttons, use your elbow.  Don’t touch handrails.  Don’t touch the cart.  Don’t touch your face.  And when we get home, we all wash our hands before doing anything else.  The kids are used to it now.  It’s become routine.  

It hasn’t been all bad though.  We have certainly loved reaching out to family members back in the States for long-distance video chats.  The kids are connecting with cousins they usually only see once a year or so.  FaceTime and Google Hangouts and Zoom have brought us all together in ways we never have before.

People we know back in the States have started asking if we will do conference calls with them, to share our story.  We had one with my cousin’s wife’s team at work.  They were hoping we would show them the light at the end of the tunnel.  Instead, there was crying.  I told them that a few days earlier I had gotten chest pains when I first woke up, and they had continued while I drove into work. When they asked me at the entrance if I had any symptoms, I mentioned the chest pains.  They immediately whisked me off to get tests done.  In those couple hours, all I could think of was the fact that if I had COVID-19, I might not see my family for weeks.  They would put me in isolation.  I would have no visitors.  I started thinking that we should get our wills updated.  I told all of this to them during the conference call.  It was not what they wanted to hear.  It’s too real.  My chest pains turned out to be heartburn.  So, no worries there.

A few days ago, Maya and Willow shot a video for a 5th grade class in Wisconsin.  I sat off to the side asking them questions.  The teacher will show the class the video and then send us back their follow-on questions.

Then yesterday, another old friend in Wisconsin had her daughter interview the girls for her school newspaper article.  They chatted for 45 minutes!

Maya has really stepped up and shown great maturity and responsibility since I had to start driving into work.  She’s in charge of the other 2 from about 7am - 2pm, when our nanny arrives.  Maya has to make sure Charlie joins all of his zoom meetings for his classes and does all his assignments.  She has to make sure they eat breakfast and lunch.  And she has to keep them from fighting all the time.  On top of all that, she has to walk Willow to her doctor’s appointments twice a week.  She is handling it like a pro.  (And if you’re wondering why Willow has doctor’s appointments twice a week, she has to get phototherapy treatments.  It’s nothing serious, but the treatments can’t be interrupted or we lose all the progress we’ve gained.)

The big difference between the situation in Korea and the situation in the US, is that we are not under an enforced total lockdown.  The businesses are not closed.  No one is losing their jobs.  Korea has worked very hard on their ability to test everyone who has been exposed and they do incredibly fast contact tracing once a patient is identified.  They can actually complete the contract tracing within 10 minutes.  They don’t rely on interviews, asking the patient where they’ve been.  They use credit card history, CCTV cameras, and cell phone monitoring.  And I don’t mind telling you that I don’t care if they are tracking my every movement.  Why?  Because it works!  If a patient is discovered, they know instantly who was in the same places at the same time as that patient over the past 2 weeks.  All of those people are immediately isolated and tested.  Because of this, they don’t need to shut down the entire country.  The most they’ve needed to do is to shut down one place of business, if a patient worked there, and then they clean it and completely decontaminate it.  If a patient shopped somewhere, they close the shop and decontaminate.

Also, I should point out, that there has been no panic buying.  We are not out of toilet paper, cleaning products, or meat.  We also still have masks.  The government collected all the masks they had stockpiled at schools (since the schools are closed and therefore the masks aren’t needed there) and then redistributed them to local pharmacies.  They set up a system whereby you are allowed to go to the pharmacy on a specific day of the week based on your birth year.  You are allowed 2 masks per week.  Pregnant women get 5 extra, so they can have one clean mask per day.

This is a country where mask wearing is totally normal throughout the year.  And, most service workers wear gloves all the time.  The kind of glove that has rubber on the palm side and is breathable on the back side.  Cashiers wear them, shelf stockers wear them, delivery men wear them, security guards wear them, everyone wears them.  These behaviors have naturally protected them from spreading COVID-19.

Yes, there is more hand sanitizer spread throughout.  They have hand sanitizer in the elevator and in the building lobby.  There are cart wipes and spray at the front of big grocery stores.  They put copper sheets over the elevator buttons.  Copper kills viruses instantly, so the elevator buttons are protected.

So this is our new normal.  The kids don’t seem to mind too much that they can wear pajamas all day long and watch Netflix or YouTube for hours on end.  They probably won’t remember this as a scary time or even as a stressful time.  They will just remember the really long stay-home vacation they were on when they were kids.  We will get through this.  You will get through this.  Just don’t tell yourselves that your lives will return to ‘normal’ any time soon.  Redefine your normal.

P.S.  If you want to FaceTime with us, interview us for a class assignment or school newspaper, we are willing and able!  Just reach out thru email or by leaving a comment below.