COVID-19 - When will it feel safe again?

Remember in my last post, when I talked about another family being in quarantine?  Well, not long after, it happened to us.  I can now tell you, with confidence, that there is a huge difference between staying home when it's your choice to do so and staying home because someone tells you that you have to.  Social distancing is not the same as quarantine.

The situation that put us into quarantine goes something like this.  I got an alert that a COVID-19 patient had been at the post office between 4:00-4:10pm on March 31.  I checked my calendar and receipts and realized I had also been at that same post office on the same day, having left at 4:01pm. How did I have such an exact time stamp?  Because I had lingered to take a photo of the 'mind the meter' social distancing stickers on the floor (used in my last blog).  The timestamp on the photo was 4:01.  As required, I had to report myself to my immediate supervisors at work.  They took action and alerted our Public Health office.  I also had to call Eric at his work and he had to report himself to his own COVID Task Force, at his job.  We were both told not to leave our apartments until it had been 14 days since March 31.  Basically, we couldn't leave our apartments until April 15.  It was April 8.

It didn't stop there though.  Eric and I had to brainstorm everyone we had been in contact with since March 31.  He had to report to his work's Task Force all the meetings he had attended and who else had been in attendance, who he had chatted with at work, basically everyone he had interacted with.  He reminded me that I had passed some hand-me-down clothes to one of his colleagues.  I had to call her, and she had to then report herself to the Task Force.  Her whole family went into quarantine too.  She told me it was because she had brought the hand-me-downs into her apartment.  The Task Force said they could have been contaminated.

Oh, but wait, there's more.  We had gone on a couple of apartment tours too.  Our lease is coming up, and we had toured 2 apartments in that time frame.  That meant the Task Force had to contact 3 realtors, and a family that lived in one of those apartments (the other was vacant).  We also had to reschedule doctor's appointments and tell our nanny to stay home and not return until April 15.
It felt awful that we had disrupted so many people's lives and also could have inadvertently passed on COVID-19 to all of them (although that was less likely).  What made it even worse though, was that Easter would be while we were in quarantine.  I had bought Easter baskets, plastic eggs, and candy for our lovely friends, the Vang Family.  Now I couldn't give them to them.  They could be contaminated.  So, not only had I affected our Easter, but theirs too.

At this point, I recalled a FB post I had read.  Something my friend Calon had posted.  He had suggested keeping a running list of everyone you have contact with, in case you get COVID-19.  That way, it will be easier to notify everyone.  I started a list.  Better late than never.

Later that day, Public Health called and asked me when and where I thought I had crossed paths with the COVID-19 patient.  I told them, and they said that even though there was only a 2-minute overlap, they had to enforce the quarantine.  I would have take my temperature twice a day and text it into a number they provided.  We were not allowed to leave the apartment.

I instantly felt trapped.  It also felt weird to suddenly feel trapped, since we hadn't been leaving the apartment much anyways.  It was just the difference of being told we couldn't, even if we wanted to.
Our friends immediately reached out and offered to bring us groceries.  I had a vision of somehow making it through 8 days without needing anything beyond what we had in the pantry.  I kept turning them down, thinking of it as some kind of survival challenge.  So what if we ran out of milk?  We had powdered milk!  We could do this!  Eric did not want to play this survival game with me.  He wanted munchies.  I had been making dinners well in advance, and freezing them, so I knew we had enough to get us through, even past the end of quarantine.  That was one meal taken care of each day.  But breakfast?  Lunch?  Snacks?  He convinced me to give in and let someone shop for us.  So, when the third friend asked, I relented.  I gave her a medium-size list for Costco.  Maybe a dozen things.  She was amazing.  She walked around Costco taking pictures of everything before she picked it up, sending me the photos confirming it was what I wanted.  It took her an hour, and then, because we weren't allowed to leave our apartment to even help her bring in the groceries, we left our wagon outside the door.  She had to ride the elevator up from the parking garage, get our wagon, ride back down, load the wagon, and then ride back up and leave it outside our door.

I'm going to take a pause here and analyze this.  I had not wanted to put this burden on any of our friends.  That was one of the reasons I had seeded the survival challenge idea into my head.  I had already burdened enough of our friends and colleagues, by putting them into quarantine too and ruining their Easter holidays.  But there is a flip side to this.  Throughout this whole COVID-19 pandemic, people have felt really helpless and powerless to fight it.  There is nothing people can do, no weapon they can brandish to fight this unseen enemy.  The only thing people are told to do is to stay home, and self-isolate.  But when a friend goes into quarantine?  All of a sudden, there is something they can do.  There is a way for them to feel helpful.  We were overwhelmed with how many offers we got.

In addition to our friend Leah, who went to Costco for us, we had 2 more deliveries that day.  Maya's friend brought over a new book to read and a batch of warm, fresh-baked cookies.  Eric's friend, James, brought over a 6-pack of cold beer and croissants.  All of the deliveries were left outside our door.  No interactions.  No hugs and thank-yous.  People are beautiful.  They know just what you need.

As the days passed, there was a shift in how I felt about it.  Yes, we were still trapped, but home was safe.  And because we never left home, we never had to worry about bringing in outside contaminants.  Our hands, which had been cracking and dry from the incessant hand-washing and sanitizing, were starting to heal.  Our faces, which had been breaking out from the trapped moisture behind the masks we wore when we were at work, started to return to normal.  I didn't have to think “What doorknob have I touched or light switch have I used since I came inside?”  Don't get me wrong, I wanted it to be over, so we could go outside again, but I was taking notice of the positive aspects too.

During this time, I did an interview with Rich Finneran.  It's about 30 minutes long, and it covers a lot of what was in my last blog post.  Watch, if you're interested.

We did celebrate Easter, if not traditionally.  We did an indoor Easter egg hunt, using plastic eggs.  The kids gorged themselves on candy.  It was a good thing I had done that shopping early.  We watched church online.  It was a beautiful service.  We did not dye Easter eggs, as we only had brown eggs, and we did not have a huge feast of a meal.  But all in all, we were happy and the kids were happy.  We were very grateful that we were not sick and that the quarantine was just a safety measure.  It could have been much worse.

On the second to last day, it occurred to me that we would soon have to enter the real world again, where the germs were.  I had mixed emotions about this.  I didn't welcome the paranoia of not touching anything and keeping 6ft away from everyone.  But I did welcome the sun and sky over our heads.  The freedom of being able to walk a longer distance than the bedroom to the kitchen.
Our friends treated us one last time.  James brought over more beer.  And Laura had cupcakes delivered!  Celebratory cupcakes that we made it through quarantine!  Public Health gave us the all clear and we ran outside!  The kids brought out their skateboards and roller skates.  The weather was gorgeous.  It felt miraculous.

virtual happy hour with Laura, Janny, and James

In the video with Rich, I said that the number of new daily cases had dropped to 27.  That was the statistic for April 10.  I was thrilled to see such a low number.  I had mentioned that this was the second dip.  On March 10, it had been down to 35, but then a cluster had appeared at a call center in Seoul which caused a second, albeit smaller, spike.  Since the interview, on May 5th, it dropped to only 3.  People all around us were breathing a collective sigh of relief.  The end was in sight.  The schools were considering reopening.  The reported cases were mainly coming in from outside sources, caught at the airport.  It seemed like the spread might be under control.

To put this in perspective, South Korea has a population of roughly 51.6 million people, the population of California and Ohio combined, in an area the size of Indiana.  On May 5th, we had 3 new cases and 1267 active cases, in a population of 51.6 million people, and I was still asking myself if it was safe to go into public.  All kinds of questions were coming to mind.  When will I feel safe to travel again?  When will I be able to hang out with friends without grilling them (or secretly wanting to grill them) on their whereabouts for the past 14 days?  Were they being as cautious as we were?  The ultimate question for me was what would that magic number be that would allow me to relax and feel safe again?  Would it be 0?  Would  it be 0 for some number of consecutive days?  I couldn’t say, but I wasn’t there yet.  Only 0.002% of the population had coronavirus, and I still wasn’t there yet.

On May 2, the weekend of Buddha’s birthday, the Korean government relaxed its restrictions and told everyone to just try and be safe.  I was not optimistic.  Buddha’s birthday is combined with Children’s Day, giving everyone a 5-day weekend.  I expected the worst, while hoping for the best.  Everyone would travel all over the country, and I expected a new spike.  We stayed home.  We thought that at this point we should be even more careful.

The Korean schools announced they had a plan for reopening on May 13.  Our school sent out a survey asking if we would even send our kids to school, if they reopened.  That was a serious question.  Would the kids be safe?  Would they feel safe?  Would they be willing to wear a mask all day?  The school sent out a video illustrating what some of the new procedures would be.  It is no joke.  It seems well thought out, but also hard to imagine what it will look like in reality.

By May 10, we had our 3rd spike, the smallest so far.  The long weekend had yielded the results I had feared.  Its epicenter was Itaewon, an area popular for nightclubs and bars.  Many people had been there that long weekend.  Many people had been exposed.  In response, schools delayed their reopening.  Churches delayed their reopening.  The people who had gone into Itaewon were from all over the country, including our town.  New cases appeared in an apartment building just blocks from us.  Any notion that we were safe a week earlier dissipated like smoke.  Just when we thought it was statistically improbable that the disease would circle back to our area, it did.  This is not a big country, and even though many people live here, it feels like the people are very connected.  Nothing is far away, and everywhere is reachable in a day trip.

I know I keep using the word ‘spike’.  And it is used in news headlines all the time too.  It sounds awful, the word ‘spike’.  It sounds like the numbers must be huge.  Here are some graphs.  Look at the y-axis.  Are the numbers as huge as you expected when I used the word ‘spike’?

The new daily count is hand-labeled in red for the days I am pointing at.

It’s all perspective.  Yes, there was a new cluster of cases.  Yes, there was a spike.  And, compared to where we were before the outbreak, it’s not good news.  What was most disappointing about the Itaewon outbreak, is that the person who spread it, didn’t know where he got it from.  

So, can we feel safe yet?  If a cluster can appear out of nowhere?  Maybe, maybe not.  Baby steps.  Eric and I went to a restaurant today.  Check out the seating in the pic below.  Each person sits at their own table, an arm length’s apart from the next table.  And everyone faces the same direction.

I started writing this blog a week ago.  It’s now Memorial Day weekend.  We are down to 716 active cases in the whole country.  We have had 264 deaths total.  I’m starting to relax.  Yes, we still wear masks outside.  We still wash our hands immediately when we come back inside.  The international school has decided not to reopen for the remainder of this school year.  That means 2 more weeks of distance learning.  We are still vigilant, but I think I’m less paranoid.  

At this point, I’m looking out at the year we have left in Korea and I’m thinking our chances to travel Asia are all in the past.  Any remaining trips we had planned are likely not going to happen.  It’s disappointing, but I’d rather remain safe and healthy here than stuck in endless cycles of quarantine that any international travel would require.

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I would like to end this blog post by offering a small PSA about mask-wearing.  It’s this: if you bother to wear one, please wear it correctly.  There is no point in wearing one if you wear it only on your chin, or only covering your mouth, but not your nose.  Also, it loses effectiveness if you constantly fiddle with it, or take it off and put it back on repeatedly while in the exposed areas, like in the workplace or while riding public transport.  Lastly, you do not need to remove the mask to speak. We can hear you just fine through the mask.

Incorrectly worn mask

Incorrectly worn mask

Correctly worn mask