American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
ChinaWire
A 36-year-old US citizen from Cupertino, California, visited Kunming, China, almost 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, on January 25.
When the Bay Area resident and user-experience designer — who requested to stay anonymous visited China, there were at least 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
And following his trip, he observed just how differently the governments of both countries dealt with the growing outbreak of the virus that has now infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 3,200 other people.
He said that he saw locals and Chinese officials understanding the severity of the outbreak and taking safety precautions. That contrasted heavily with his colleagues' blasé attitudes back in the US and a disorderly experience at San Francisco International Airport upon his return on February 2.
In China, he noticed precautions being taken.
Cathay Pacific Airways flight attendants wore masks aboard, as did many Chinese residents, he said. The man said locals likely remembered what it was like experiencing the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and knew how to prepare.
(While masks can help prevent people who are already sick from spreading the illness, they're not very effective for healthy people trying to avoid getting it. Health experts recommend washing your hands thoroughly and avoiding close contact with people who are sick.)
Passengers also went through full-body screenings with infrared thermometers at the airport in Kunming, he said.
When a relative with late-stage cancer died while the man was visiting, the body was taken away by people in protective suits as a precaution.
The Chinese government had issued an order to cremate the body of a loved one within 12 hours of their death in case they had the virus, something the man said he and his family followed.
A family in Wuhan was described as having to do the same in a New York Times report on February 10.
But returning to the US was a different story.
He said "the alarm bells" sounded when he saw how the outbreak was being addressed at San Francisco International Airport.
"They literally had no idea what they were doing," he said, adding that one airport official even admitted that since things had escalated so quickly they were in disarray.
As passengers got off the plane, no one was at the gate to recording their temperatures, he said. (One of the symptoms of the disease is a fever, though a few cases are asymptomatic.)
He also said no one was wearing masks.
It took him hours to go through customs, get his temperature taken at customs, and fill out paperwork. The man said the paperwork that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave him was handwritten and then photocopied.
People returning from China were taken from the immigration gate to a designated area to have their temperature taken. But since neither he nor his family members exhibited any symptoms or felt sick, they weren't tested for COVID-19.
Passengers coming from China had to wait in "the little black room" in the airport, typically used for passengers with visa problems, he said.
The Bay Area resident said immigration officials didn't wear any sort of protection and were impatient with people, telling them to stop asking questions when they inquired about the wait time.
"It was really not a good experience at that point," he said.
If he had returned from China's Hubei province, he would have been given a government-mandated quarantine.
But what he was given instead was a verbal recommendation to stay home and avoid going in public for 14 days. CDC officials also gave passengers cards with guidelines about how to self-quarantine and told him to give it to a primary-care doctor, should he visit one.
Thousands of people in California and beyond are self-quarantining in response to the outbreak, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms.
He said that the CDC never contacted him during his quarantine to check in on his and his family's health and that there was no form or other documentation to submit at the end of the quarantine.
"I'm seeing reports now that the CDC is monitoring, but what are they monitoring?" he said.
He worked from home. He said his son went to school the day after the family returned to the US, despite the man's request to allow his son to stay home and for his absences to be excused. It was only after concerned parents learned of the family's trip to China that the school allowed the boy to stay home, he said.
He said that if his son had had the virus, the boy could have passed it along to others at school in just that one day.
He completed his quarantine on February 17, but concerns about the virus loom as cases are reported throughout the US.
He said that based on his experience in both China and the US as the coronavirus has spread, his family was actually considering going back to China since they felt safer there.
"As someone who was in China during the initial outbreak/lockdowns and restrictions and seeing the situation develop here in the US I am 100x more concerned for my own safety during this crisis than I ever was in China," he said.
As of Thursday, there were 130 confirmed cases in the US across 16 states, including New York and Washington. There have been cases of "community spread" in the US, meaning people who contracted the virus despite not traveling outside the US. And CDC test kits for the virus are limited.
"We're the richest country in the world," he said. "We should be the most prepared."
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
ChinaWire
A 36-year-old US citizen from Cupertino, California, visited Kunming, China, almost 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, on January 25.
When the Bay Area resident and user-experience designer — who requested to stay anonymous visited China, there were at least 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
And following his trip, he observed just how differently the governments of both countries dealt with the growing outbreak of the virus that has now infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 3,200 other people.
He said that he saw locals and Chinese officials understanding the severity of the outbreak and taking safety precautions. That contrasted heavily with his colleagues' blasé attitudes back in the US and a disorderly experience at San Francisco International Airport upon his return on February 2.
In China, he noticed precautions being taken.
Cathay Pacific Airways flight attendants wore masks aboard, as did many Chinese residents, he said. The man said locals likely remembered what it was like experiencing the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and knew how to prepare.
(While masks can help prevent people who are already sick from spreading the illness, they're not very effective for healthy people trying to avoid getting it. Health experts recommend washing your hands thoroughly and avoiding close contact with people who are sick.)
Passengers also went through full-body screenings with infrared thermometers at the airport in Kunming, he said.
When a relative with late-stage cancer died while the man was visiting, the body was taken away by people in protective suits as a precaution.
The Chinese government had issued an order to cremate the body of a loved one within 12 hours of their death in case they had the virus, something the man said he and his family followed.
A family in Wuhan was described as having to do the same in a New York Times report on February 10.
But returning to the US was a different story.
He said "the alarm bells" sounded when he saw how the outbreak was being addressed at San Francisco International Airport.
"They literally had no idea what they were doing," he said, adding that one airport official even admitted that since things had escalated so quickly they were in disarray.
As passengers got off the plane, no one was at the gate to recording their temperatures, he said. (One of the symptoms of the disease is a fever, though a few cases are asymptomatic.)
He also said no one was wearing masks.
It took him hours to go through customs, get his temperature taken at customs, and fill out paperwork. The man said the paperwork that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave him was handwritten and then photocopied.
People returning from China were taken from the immigration gate to a designated area to have their temperature taken. But since neither he nor his family members exhibited any symptoms or felt sick, they weren't tested for COVID-19.
Passengers coming from China had to wait in "the little black room" in the airport, typically used for passengers with visa problems, he said.
The Bay Area resident said immigration officials didn't wear any sort of protection and were impatient with people, telling them to stop asking questions when they inquired about the wait time.
"It was really not a good experience at that point," he said.
If he had returned from China's Hubei province, he would have been given a government-mandated quarantine.
But what he was given instead was a verbal recommendation to stay home and avoid going in public for 14 days. CDC officials also gave passengers cards with guidelines about how to self-quarantine and told him to give it to a primary-care doctor, should he visit one.
Thousands of people in California and beyond are self-quarantining in response to the outbreak, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms.
He said that the CDC never contacted him during his quarantine to check in on his and his family's health and that there was no form or other documentation to submit at the end of the quarantine.
"I'm seeing reports now that the CDC is monitoring, but what are they monitoring?" he said.
He worked from home. He said his son went to school the day after the family returned to the US, despite the man's request to allow his son to stay home and for his absences to be excused. It was only after concerned parents learned of the family's trip to China that the school allowed the boy to stay home, he said.
He said that if his son had had the virus, the boy could have passed it along to others at school in just that one day.
He completed his quarantine on February 17, but concerns about the virus loom as cases are reported throughout the US.
He said that based on his experience in both China and the US as the coronavirus has spread, his family was actually considering going back to China since they felt safer there.
"As someone who was in China during the initial outbreak/lockdowns and restrictions and seeing the situation develop here in the US I am 100x more concerned for my own safety during this crisis than I ever was in China," he said.
As of Thursday, there were 130 confirmed cases in the US across 16 states, including New York and Washington. There have been cases of "community spread" in the US, meaning people who contracted the virus despite not traveling outside the US. And CDC test kits for the virus are limited.
"We're the richest country in the world," he said. "We should be the most prepared."
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavi... (
show quote)
The only true way for a country to be prepared is when the government identifies and reacts to a problem. Unfortunately to many sources have the president and the present adminstration not considering the reports of the virus important enough to react . VP Pence who was put in charge of the reaction group has a history of negative responses to siturations like this.
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
ChinaWire
A 36-year-old US citizen from Cupertino, California, visited Kunming, China, almost 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, on January 25.
When the Bay Area resident and user-experience designer — who requested to stay anonymous visited China, there were at least 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
And following his trip, he observed just how differently the governments of both countries dealt with the growing outbreak of the virus that has now infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 3,200 other people.
He said that he saw locals and Chinese officials understanding the severity of the outbreak and taking safety precautions. That contrasted heavily with his colleagues' blasé attitudes back in the US and a disorderly experience at San Francisco International Airport upon his return on February 2.
In China, he noticed precautions being taken.
Cathay Pacific Airways flight attendants wore masks aboard, as did many Chinese residents, he said. The man said locals likely remembered what it was like experiencing the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and knew how to prepare.
(While masks can help prevent people who are already sick from spreading the illness, they're not very effective for healthy people trying to avoid getting it. Health experts recommend washing your hands thoroughly and avoiding close contact with people who are sick.)
Passengers also went through full-body screenings with infrared thermometers at the airport in Kunming, he said.
When a relative with late-stage cancer died while the man was visiting, the body was taken away by people in protective suits as a precaution.
The Chinese government had issued an order to cremate the body of a loved one within 12 hours of their death in case they had the virus, something the man said he and his family followed.
A family in Wuhan was described as having to do the same in a New York Times report on February 10.
But returning to the US was a different story.
He said "the alarm bells" sounded when he saw how the outbreak was being addressed at San Francisco International Airport.
"They literally had no idea what they were doing," he said, adding that one airport official even admitted that since things had escalated so quickly they were in disarray.
As passengers got off the plane, no one was at the gate to recording their temperatures, he said. (One of the symptoms of the disease is a fever, though a few cases are asymptomatic.)
He also said no one was wearing masks.
It took him hours to go through customs, get his temperature taken at customs, and fill out paperwork. The man said the paperwork that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave him was handwritten and then photocopied.
People returning from China were taken from the immigration gate to a designated area to have their temperature taken. But since neither he nor his family members exhibited any symptoms or felt sick, they weren't tested for COVID-19.
Passengers coming from China had to wait in "the little black room" in the airport, typically used for passengers with visa problems, he said.
The Bay Area resident said immigration officials didn't wear any sort of protection and were impatient with people, telling them to stop asking questions when they inquired about the wait time.
"It was really not a good experience at that point," he said.
If he had returned from China's Hubei province, he would have been given a government-mandated quarantine.
But what he was given instead was a verbal recommendation to stay home and avoid going in public for 14 days. CDC officials also gave passengers cards with guidelines about how to self-quarantine and told him to give it to a primary-care doctor, should he visit one.
Thousands of people in California and beyond are self-quarantining in response to the outbreak, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms.
He said that the CDC never contacted him during his quarantine to check in on his and his family's health and that there was no form or other documentation to submit at the end of the quarantine.
"I'm seeing reports now that the CDC is monitoring, but what are they monitoring?" he said.
He worked from home. He said his son went to school the day after the family returned to the US, despite the man's request to allow his son to stay home and for his absences to be excused. It was only after concerned parents learned of the family's trip to China that the school allowed the boy to stay home, he said.
He said that if his son had had the virus, the boy could have passed it along to others at school in just that one day.
He completed his quarantine on February 17, but concerns about the virus loom as cases are reported throughout the US.
He said that based on his experience in both China and the US as the coronavirus has spread, his family was actually considering going back to China since they felt safer there.
"As someone who was in China during the initial outbreak/lockdowns and restrictions and seeing the situation develop here in the US I am 100x more concerned for my own safety during this crisis than I ever was in China," he said.
As of Thursday, there were 130 confirmed cases in the US across 16 states, including New York and Washington. There have been cases of "community spread" in the US, meaning people who contracted the virus despite not traveling outside the US. And CDC test kits for the virus are limited.
"We're the richest country in the world," he said. "We should be the most prepared."
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavi... (
show quote)
In theory, the US is the most prepared country in the world, in practice though, it is far from prepared. A recent infectious disease epidemic simulation had everything, simulated news reports, digital maps showing disease spread in simulated real time, everything except;
Real people clogging emergency rooms, real people swamping telephone lines, real people actually trying to find and distribute critical medical supplies Nation wide, real people trying to triage patients, real people setting up quarantine areas Nation wide, feeding and monitoring those in quarantine, setting up isolation treatment areas Nation wide..........................the list goes on.
The bottom line is, the US was prepared to handle an epidemic..................................as long as it was simulated with movie grade props and computer generated graphics.
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
ChinaWire
A 36-year-old US citizen from Cupertino, California, visited Kunming, China, almost 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, on January 25.
When the Bay Area resident and user-experience designer — who requested to stay anonymous visited China, there were at least 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
And following his trip, he observed just how differently the governments of both countries dealt with the growing outbreak of the virus that has now infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 3,200 other people.
He said that he saw locals and Chinese officials understanding the severity of the outbreak and taking safety precautions. That contrasted heavily with his colleagues' blasé attitudes back in the US and a disorderly experience at San Francisco International Airport upon his return on February 2.
In China, he noticed precautions being taken.
Cathay Pacific Airways flight attendants wore masks aboard, as did many Chinese residents, he said. The man said locals likely remembered what it was like experiencing the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and knew how to prepare.
(While masks can help prevent people who are already sick from spreading the illness, they're not very effective for healthy people trying to avoid getting it. Health experts recommend washing your hands thoroughly and avoiding close contact with people who are sick.)
Passengers also went through full-body screenings with infrared thermometers at the airport in Kunming, he said.
When a relative with late-stage cancer died while the man was visiting, the body was taken away by people in protective suits as a precaution.
The Chinese government had issued an order to cremate the body of a loved one within 12 hours of their death in case they had the virus, something the man said he and his family followed.
A family in Wuhan was described as having to do the same in a New York Times report on February 10.
But returning to the US was a different story.
He said "the alarm bells" sounded when he saw how the outbreak was being addressed at San Francisco International Airport.
"They literally had no idea what they were doing," he said, adding that one airport official even admitted that since things had escalated so quickly they were in disarray.
As passengers got off the plane, no one was at the gate to recording their temperatures, he said. (One of the symptoms of the disease is a fever, though a few cases are asymptomatic.)
He also said no one was wearing masks.
It took him hours to go through customs, get his temperature taken at customs, and fill out paperwork. The man said the paperwork that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave him was handwritten and then photocopied.
People returning from China were taken from the immigration gate to a designated area to have their temperature taken. But since neither he nor his family members exhibited any symptoms or felt sick, they weren't tested for COVID-19.
Passengers coming from China had to wait in "the little black room" in the airport, typically used for passengers with visa problems, he said.
The Bay Area resident said immigration officials didn't wear any sort of protection and were impatient with people, telling them to stop asking questions when they inquired about the wait time.
"It was really not a good experience at that point," he said.
If he had returned from China's Hubei province, he would have been given a government-mandated quarantine.
But what he was given instead was a verbal recommendation to stay home and avoid going in public for 14 days. CDC officials also gave passengers cards with guidelines about how to self-quarantine and told him to give it to a primary-care doctor, should he visit one.
Thousands of people in California and beyond are self-quarantining in response to the outbreak, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms.
He said that the CDC never contacted him during his quarantine to check in on his and his family's health and that there was no form or other documentation to submit at the end of the quarantine.
"I'm seeing reports now that the CDC is monitoring, but what are they monitoring?" he said.
He worked from home. He said his son went to school the day after the family returned to the US, despite the man's request to allow his son to stay home and for his absences to be excused. It was only after concerned parents learned of the family's trip to China that the school allowed the boy to stay home, he said.
He said that if his son had had the virus, the boy could have passed it along to others at school in just that one day.
He completed his quarantine on February 17, but concerns about the virus loom as cases are reported throughout the US.
He said that based on his experience in both China and the US as the coronavirus has spread, his family was actually considering going back to China since they felt safer there.
"As someone who was in China during the initial outbreak/lockdowns and restrictions and seeing the situation develop here in the US I am 100x more concerned for my own safety during this crisis than I ever was in China," he said.
As of Thursday, there were 130 confirmed cases in the US across 16 states, including New York and Washington. There have been cases of "community spread" in the US, meaning people who contracted the virus despite not traveling outside the US. And CDC test kits for the virus are limited.
"We're the richest country in the world," he said. "We should be the most prepared."
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavi... (
show quote)
>>>
There is NO Containment anywhere...
34 States infected, 5 more over the weekend
500cases and growing
D.C. gets infected now and I’m laughing so hard... can’t wait to see who drops first...
End of Discussion !
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
ChinaWire
A 36-year-old US citizen from Cupertino, California, visited Kunming, China, almost 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, on January 25.
When the Bay Area resident and user-experience designer — who requested to stay anonymous visited China, there were at least 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
And following his trip, he observed just how differently the governments of both countries dealt with the growing outbreak of the virus that has now infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 3,200 other people.
He said that he saw locals and Chinese officials understanding the severity of the outbreak and taking safety precautions. That contrasted heavily with his colleagues' blasé attitudes back in the US and a disorderly experience at San Francisco International Airport upon his return on February 2.
In China, he noticed precautions being taken.
Cathay Pacific Airways flight attendants wore masks aboard, as did many Chinese residents, he said. The man said locals likely remembered what it was like experiencing the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and knew how to prepare.
(While masks can help prevent people who are already sick from spreading the illness, they're not very effective for healthy people trying to avoid getting it. Health experts recommend washing your hands thoroughly and avoiding close contact with people who are sick.)
Passengers also went through full-body screenings with infrared thermometers at the airport in Kunming, he said.
When a relative with late-stage cancer died while the man was visiting, the body was taken away by people in protective suits as a precaution.
The Chinese government had issued an order to cremate the body of a loved one within 12 hours of their death in case they had the virus, something the man said he and his family followed.
A family in Wuhan was described as having to do the same in a New York Times report on February 10.
But returning to the US was a different story.
He said "the alarm bells" sounded when he saw how the outbreak was being addressed at San Francisco International Airport.
"They literally had no idea what they were doing," he said, adding that one airport official even admitted that since things had escalated so quickly they were in disarray.
As passengers got off the plane, no one was at the gate to recording their temperatures, he said. (One of the symptoms of the disease is a fever, though a few cases are asymptomatic.)
He also said no one was wearing masks.
It took him hours to go through customs, get his temperature taken at customs, and fill out paperwork. The man said the paperwork that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave him was handwritten and then photocopied.
People returning from China were taken from the immigration gate to a designated area to have their temperature taken. But since neither he nor his family members exhibited any symptoms or felt sick, they weren't tested for COVID-19.
Passengers coming from China had to wait in "the little black room" in the airport, typically used for passengers with visa problems, he said.
The Bay Area resident said immigration officials didn't wear any sort of protection and were impatient with people, telling them to stop asking questions when they inquired about the wait time.
"It was really not a good experience at that point," he said.
If he had returned from China's Hubei province, he would have been given a government-mandated quarantine.
But what he was given instead was a verbal recommendation to stay home and avoid going in public for 14 days. CDC officials also gave passengers cards with guidelines about how to self-quarantine and told him to give it to a primary-care doctor, should he visit one.
Thousands of people in California and beyond are self-quarantining in response to the outbreak, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms.
He said that the CDC never contacted him during his quarantine to check in on his and his family's health and that there was no form or other documentation to submit at the end of the quarantine.
"I'm seeing reports now that the CDC is monitoring, but what are they monitoring?" he said.
He worked from home. He said his son went to school the day after the family returned to the US, despite the man's request to allow his son to stay home and for his absences to be excused. It was only after concerned parents learned of the family's trip to China that the school allowed the boy to stay home, he said.
He said that if his son had had the virus, the boy could have passed it along to others at school in just that one day.
He completed his quarantine on February 17, but concerns about the virus loom as cases are reported throughout the US.
He said that based on his experience in both China and the US as the coronavirus has spread, his family was actually considering going back to China since they felt safer there.
"As someone who was in China during the initial outbreak/lockdowns and restrictions and seeing the situation develop here in the US I am 100x more concerned for my own safety during this crisis than I ever was in China," he said.
As of Thursday, there were 130 confirmed cases in the US across 16 states, including New York and Washington. There have been cases of "community spread" in the US, meaning people who contracted the virus despite not traveling outside the US. And CDC test kits for the virus are limited.
"We're the richest country in the world," he said. "We should be the most prepared."
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavi... (
show quote)
Canuckus
you quote "China Wire", why is that? The same China wire that celebrated the Party motto "the bloodless victory" and the Wuhan #4 biological warfare laboratory in all of China ? May yoube a Chinese asset after all?
Confess...
newbear wrote:
Canuckus
you quote "China Wire", why is that? The same China wire that celebrated the Party motto "the bloodless victory" and the Wuhan #4 biological warfare laboratory in all of China ? May yoube a Chinese asset after all?
Confess...
What are you babbling about?
I think your translation program might be glitching on you...
It is your translation program from Mandarin to English that is "glitching" on you. As for babbling, that is a nice touch. Still, you did not answer the question "are you a Chinese asset"?
newbear wrote:
It is your translation program from Mandarin to English that is "glitching" on you. As for babbling, that is a nice touch. Still, you did not answer the question "are you a Chinese asset"?
Mandarin is my second language... And a rather fascinating one at that...
No... I'm not a Chinese asset... The question in itself is absurd... But trolls rarely make sense...
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
ChinaWire
A 36-year-old US citizen from Cupertino, California, visited Kunming, China, almost 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak originated, on January 25.
When the Bay Area resident and user-experience designer — who requested to stay anonymous visited China, there were at least 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
And following his trip, he observed just how differently the governments of both countries dealt with the growing outbreak of the virus that has now infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 3,200 other people.
He said that he saw locals and Chinese officials understanding the severity of the outbreak and taking safety precautions. That contrasted heavily with his colleagues' blasé attitudes back in the US and a disorderly experience at San Francisco International Airport upon his return on February 2.
In China, he noticed precautions being taken.
Cathay Pacific Airways flight attendants wore masks aboard, as did many Chinese residents, he said. The man said locals likely remembered what it was like experiencing the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and knew how to prepare.
(While masks can help prevent people who are already sick from spreading the illness, they're not very effective for healthy people trying to avoid getting it. Health experts recommend washing your hands thoroughly and avoiding close contact with people who are sick.)
Passengers also went through full-body screenings with infrared thermometers at the airport in Kunming, he said.
When a relative with late-stage cancer died while the man was visiting, the body was taken away by people in protective suits as a precaution.
The Chinese government had issued an order to cremate the body of a loved one within 12 hours of their death in case they had the virus, something the man said he and his family followed.
A family in Wuhan was described as having to do the same in a New York Times report on February 10.
But returning to the US was a different story.
He said "the alarm bells" sounded when he saw how the outbreak was being addressed at San Francisco International Airport.
"They literally had no idea what they were doing," he said, adding that one airport official even admitted that since things had escalated so quickly they were in disarray.
As passengers got off the plane, no one was at the gate to recording their temperatures, he said. (One of the symptoms of the disease is a fever, though a few cases are asymptomatic.)
He also said no one was wearing masks.
It took him hours to go through customs, get his temperature taken at customs, and fill out paperwork. The man said the paperwork that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave him was handwritten and then photocopied.
People returning from China were taken from the immigration gate to a designated area to have their temperature taken. But since neither he nor his family members exhibited any symptoms or felt sick, they weren't tested for COVID-19.
Passengers coming from China had to wait in "the little black room" in the airport, typically used for passengers with visa problems, he said.
The Bay Area resident said immigration officials didn't wear any sort of protection and were impatient with people, telling them to stop asking questions when they inquired about the wait time.
"It was really not a good experience at that point," he said.
If he had returned from China's Hubei province, he would have been given a government-mandated quarantine.
But what he was given instead was a verbal recommendation to stay home and avoid going in public for 14 days. CDC officials also gave passengers cards with guidelines about how to self-quarantine and told him to give it to a primary-care doctor, should he visit one.
Thousands of people in California and beyond are self-quarantining in response to the outbreak, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms.
He said that the CDC never contacted him during his quarantine to check in on his and his family's health and that there was no form or other documentation to submit at the end of the quarantine.
"I'm seeing reports now that the CDC is monitoring, but what are they monitoring?" he said.
He worked from home. He said his son went to school the day after the family returned to the US, despite the man's request to allow his son to stay home and for his absences to be excused. It was only after concerned parents learned of the family's trip to China that the school allowed the boy to stay home, he said.
He said that if his son had had the virus, the boy could have passed it along to others at school in just that one day.
He completed his quarantine on February 17, but concerns about the virus loom as cases are reported throughout the US.
He said that based on his experience in both China and the US as the coronavirus has spread, his family was actually considering going back to China since they felt safer there.
"As someone who was in China during the initial outbreak/lockdowns and restrictions and seeing the situation develop here in the US I am 100x more concerned for my own safety during this crisis than I ever was in China," he said.
As of Thursday, there were 130 confirmed cases in the US across 16 states, including New York and Washington. There have been cases of "community spread" in the US, meaning people who contracted the virus despite not traveling outside the US. And CDC test kits for the virus are limited.
"We're the richest country in the world," he said. "We should be the most prepared."
American Said He Felt safer in China Amid Coronavi... (
show quote)
Point taken. From the very start of this crisis, there seemed to be a deliberate decision not to test anyone for Covid-19 unless they came from an infected area, or had contact with a known infected person. If you don't test, how do you know how serious the problem really is until it is too late to do anything to stop it?
I've read numerous reports of lack of enforcement, either deliberately or through sheer ineptitude, of the containment of potentially infected people.
If I were one of those "conspiracy theorists", I would probably think that the Corona Virus would be used as a scapegoat for the long overdue financial system collapse created by the Fed. Good thing I am not a "conspiracy theorist"!
https://youtu.be/ZiisJ9qH0Fk
ACP45 wrote:
Point taken. From the very start of this crisis, there seemed to be a deliberate decision not to test anyone for Covid-19 unless they came from an infected area, or had contact with a known infected person. If you don't test, how do you know how serious the problem really is until it is too late to do anything to stop it?
I've read numerous reports of lack of enforcement, either deliberately or through sheer ineptitude, of the containment of potentially infected people.
If I were one of those "conspiracy theorists", I would probably think that the Corona Virus would be used as a scapegoat for the long overdue financial system collapse created by the Fed. Good thing I am not a "conspiracy theorist"!
Point taken. From the very start of this crisis, t... (
show quote)
A good thing indeed
I despise theories
I have read these stories as well... What is wrong with those folk?
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