Travelling During the Pandemic

By: Sara Io

Traveling was a norm for humans. To some people of the world, who aren’t as lucky as us, think that travelling is luxury that they have not experienced yet. But, for those of us who travel often, or who have never been out of the country, travelling is a luxury that we might not appreciate. Travelling could come naturally to some people, who might have already seen the world, and they might have been stuck with the travel bug during the pandemic. Last year, 2020, I am sure that all around the world, travelling plans have been canceled leaving humans with a void made of curiosity. It used to be so easy to travel. But, like I’ve written before, there is a new normal to travelling.

I recently went to the United States during the winter break, and my experience to the United States and coming back into China will be one that will stick with me forever. To get into China, the health process was strict, unexpected, and a little scary. Coming from California, my family and I had to find a place to do the Covid-19 test and the antibody test. The nasal Covid-19 test is like most, but the antibody test was taken from blood. It tests if your antibodies had any kind of coronavirus, including the flu or the common cold, inside and was infected. After the tests, the process hadn’t been completed.

Once arriving at the airport in the US, the line was long to check in. As I scanned the people around me, I saw that there were passengers wearing a full PPE (Personal Protective Equipment.) There were airport staff checking our test results and our temperature, they stuck a sticker on our passports where they recorded our temperature. Continuing on after checking in and customs, we boarded the plane only to see that it was not only passengers who were in PPE suits, flight attendants were too. Flight attendants who usually wore their uniform, a suit, or a dress, were now all wearing a PPE suit along with a N95 mask, helping the passengers get settled.

Once we found our seats, I saw that there was a plastic bag on the seat. A bag of food. We asked and realized that this bag was our only food source for the entire 14-hour flight. Remember how we used to complain about airplane food? How it wasn’t delicious at all? Well, at that moment, I was definitely missing that hot, not so delicious food. In the tied-up plastic bag there were two tiny bottles of water, a very small apple, an orange, a cold roll of bread, jam, a mini pack of Oreos, and a Kit-Kat. Luckily, I had packed my own snacks, such as granola bars, our own cup noodles, and soon the flight would be over. It was interesting to see both passengers and flight attendants in the same suit, which only indicated that the pandemic is no silly situation to be dealt with. The flight attendants would also take our temperature about every 4-6 hours to ensure ours and their safety.

The journey continued as we landed in China. In normal circumstances, passengers would usually arrive at their terminal waiting in line to go through immigration, and customs. But, as I’ve mentioned before, this is no normal trip. Our flight was bused to another terminal, one that was not for customs and immigration. Instead, the terminal that we were bused to was where the crazy was happening. We were passed a paper with a QR code that we had to scan, and as I suspected, it was another health declaration form we had to fill in. To leave the country, we also had to have a QR code ensuring that we filled in the form. I had to fill in if I was leaving or entering China, if I had any symptoms of Covid-19, where I lived, and where I recently went to. Same thing entering the country. Once we finished the form, we had to show it to the lady who was checking the forms. And at that point, I was not surprised that she, too, was wearing a PPE suit.

Walking through the terminal with my backpack and suitcase at hand, I thought that the staff and security would be back to their normal uniforms by the time we got to security, and after we boarded the plane. Only to be proved wrong. There was a “health immigration” we had to go through where security staff checked our temperature, checked our code once again and asked us a couple questions. We, honestly, had no idea what was going on. No one told us what was happening or where we were going. No passengers knew it either. We just had to follow the crowd and the path, there were divider belts that sectioned off areas we weren’t supposed to go through. I could completely picture the process we were going through a scene in a science-fiction movie. After the checks…there were more checks.

Another PPE suited staff member checked our passports, a sticker that the previous security staff placed on the back of our passports and gave us a test tube with liquid in it. There were two tests, one was a nasopharyngeal test and the other one a rapid swab test. The nasopharyngeal was very uncomfortable, whereas the rapid swab test wasn’t as uncomfortable. All I must say is that I would rather do the rapid swab test twice than do the nasopharyngeal once. As I walked out with my test specimens, I dropped it in the basket where everyone else had and we were bused, yet again, to another terminal. Luckily for us, the terminal had no more tests or health immigrations, it was the normal immigration and customs with a few tweaks.

After customs and immigrations, we were in a long line, for what? At that point, we didn’t know. But it was a line to get onto another bus. This one, not to another terminal. This one, to a quarantine hotel. I’m sure many of you know that passengers coming from foreign countries must stay in a quarantine hotel, not of your choice, for 14 days. The buses to hotels were completely  random and when we got on a bus, we asked around, but no one knew what hotel we were going to.

Once leaving the airport, I didn’t know where we were going, and the quarantine experience has truly been interesting and that is completely different story. Writing this story, and looking back on everything, I understand another aspect of what the pandemic has impacted. Travelling was a norm for us, it used to be so easy. When will it go back to normal? I don’t know. Will it ever go back to normal? I hope so, but I also don’t know. I have to say that that day of travelling was definitely a memorable way to end the year. I hope that the pandemic will end soon, and everything will go back to normal, but for now this is the new normal.

Source of picture: 

https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/travel/2020/11/25/photos-holiday-travel-during-covid-19-pandemic/6416734002/