Living through the Coronavirus Pandemic from abroad đź‘‘ đź¦
I currently reside in Argentina, my family & my home is there. Since I am a remote Journalist & UX designer, I get to travel for work and can change my office’s background from time to time. I had to travel to Barcelona because we were organizing a Service Design Jam with a gender perspective with a group of friends. Little did I know that this trip would change everything.
When I arrived in Barcelona, the Coronavirus fear was already something in our minds, but people nor governments weren’t freaked out as they are now. I arrived at Barcelona on February the 26th. I even remember my friends joking about it one week prior to my trip and me saying “this is not going to escalate into anything”. How naive I was, we all were.
Since my sister is a doctor, even before I came to Europe, I knew I had to take care of myself, I even brought more than one hand sanitiser in my backpack and understood that I had to follow some basic hygiene rules. I tried to avoid contact, and touching my face and all that stuff, but I didn’t avoid crowds. Thanks to her, I had access to 24/7 medical advice from time to time, and I have to admit that it was more than necessary. Because having someone close by that can reassure that you are okay, even if it’s via Whatsapp or Telegram, is something that helps you from going down the panic rabbit hole.
On the plane to Barcelona, I could already witness one of my first contacts with people using masks. But I wasn’t concerned about that, I was more concerned about all those discriminating eyes towards asians and masks. I couldn’t believe it, but people were weary, looking at everyone with distrust. Even if you sneezed because of the air conditioner, people would give you a bad look. This appeared to be a scene from a dystopian movie or from a Simpsons episode actually.
During my two weeks in Barcelona, the Corona fear wasn’t that bad actually, but I did notice more discrimination towards certain races than the one from the plane.. I even got to stay with a friend that worked as a doctor at a public hospital, and according to him things weren’t that bad, at least not yet. There was some talk over the media about the outbreak and about avoiding crowds or public places, but that city was filled up with people everywhere I went. I even attended the women’s march on Sunday the 8th and nor the Coronavirus nor the government could prevent women from marching. There were blocks and blocks of people marching the streets actually.
But the scene according to the Argentinian & Spanish media was completely different. And me being a journalist, that really resonated with me. My family kept sending me worrying messages asking if I was fine, so I decided to see some of the newspapers from back home and I couldn’t believe the panic and fear that they were spreading. Like all news were about the Corona virus and about people freaking out, inciting people to go to the market and buy groceries to stock themselves.
When I arrived in Madrid everything changed. From one day to the next, the city turned into a ghost town. Every couple of hours, a spanish media or someone on social media would spread rumours about transportation outage, or travel cancellation, but there wasn’t any official communication about it. For those of us having to leave Spain, the idea of being locked up in a city due to quarantine didn’t sound too good.
I even went to a supermarket two days in a row, and the aisles had emptied in only a couple of hours. When I turned the news, all the media were showing was people trying to buy toilet paper and groceries. But does this promote this idea of food shortage? What’s the purpose behind them showing 24/7 empty supermarket aisles?
What really amazed me about what was going on in Madrid was how quickly everything escalated. I arrived on Monday, and by Wednesday’ morning people were already talking about the city getting a 15 day quarantine lockdown. What didn’t happen in one month, got sanctioned in just one morning and the Spanish government decided to close schools and if rumours are true, by the time this gets published, the transportation will be restricted too. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying the measures they are taking are bad, not at all, But how they went on about it was incorrect, they waited too long, and allowed whispers to take over. Also, if we analyse the media with a critical eye, we can clearly see that the message they are trying to convey is completely wrong. They are only spreading fear, and people are freaking out and trying to stock themselves like if this was the apocalypse. There aren’t many media, at least not in Argentina or Spain, actually explaining calmly why quarantine is effective and how to prevent contagion. I did find some incredible alternative articles or videos of doctors that took the time to explain thoroughly the importance of taking care of everyone and not spreading more fear into the people, and also into the markets as well, because as we all know, the economy is also being affected by this.
After one stressful morning, I was able to reschedule my flight back home before the city got on lockdown. The scene when I arrived at the Madrid International Barajas Airport was dreadful. This is a huge airport that’s usually very crowded, but that day, the picture was completely different. There were no more than 20, 30 people I could spot, and from time to time I was the only one walking those lanes. From one terminal to the other the situation got even worse. You could hear the workers from customs or from the security checkup talking about flights getting delayed. The scenario was getting worse by the minute. I decided to open twitter, I believe that this is the best social media to really find out what’s going on in a place. But Twitter didn’t paint a better picture.
After spending like 6 hours or more at the airport, and a 12 hour flight, I was finally back home. Upon our arrival, the airplane was divided into groups of 30 and everyone had to fill out a health legal declaration and our temperatures got measured. No one informed us about what the quarantine entailed nor reinforced it. I could even hear some tourists in the back of the plane saying that they were going on holiday and that this wouldn’t interfere with their plans.. I was amazed about how the government “Coronavirus” mitigation setup seemed so professional at some parts and then they looked as amateurs when they made it available for us to be in contact with other people from the airport, breaking in this way, the medical protocols that a real quarantine would entail.
In hindsight, I can say several things about having lived this pandemic from one of the epicenters:
- Don’t solely rely on the media, they always have an agenda. Try and watch more than one channel/newspaper/radio and try not to get scared about those panicky messages they try and impose.
- If possible, ask yourself what’s beneath the message the media are communicating and try to read between the lines.
- Try and access scientific or medical papers that explain what the situation is. They are a better reading material than newspapers.
- Being far from my family was hard, but a transparent communication is essential. When everyone is far away, you might need not to worry them with all the details, but try and be clear about what’s going on, so that in case something escalates quickly, you are being monitored by someone you love.
- And last but not least, try not to panic and succumb in fear. This too shall pass.
