Colin Flahive has written an excellent series of blog posts about living in China during the Coronavirus outbreak
In an excerpt from his fourth installment, Colin writes:
It is hard to tell if people smile anymore. It takes more effort to read people behind their masks and it takes more effort to hear their muffled words. Eyes alone are not nearly as expressive as I thought they were. But a month is a long time, and the eyes at least reveal that.
It has been a month since our business was closed down, and at least as long since I've seen my wife and son who are still stuck at the family village in the mountains. It has been a month of smelling my own breath through my mask and using so much hand sanitizer that my hands have become rough. It has been a month of my computer and I getting to know each other more than either of us really wanted. It has been a month of seeing children longingly stare out apartment windows, and me wondering if we’ve already long been living in a dystopian world and have just been too stubborn to notice. It has been a month of temperature scans and mandatory tracking apps. It has been a month of worrying that one day toilet paper might become the new currency of trade. And it has been a month of incredible sacrifices by everyone in this country to do their part to try to keep this virus from becoming endemic.