Diary of an expat doing quarantine in Mauritius
Arrival
The plane landed on time, at 11 AM. We did our immigration formalities as usual and were out of the airport at 11:40. They gave us a blue or red envelope with all the information about the quarantine and gathered us on a couple of buses, one blue, one red, to match our envelope. Each bus was destined to a different hotel.
We sat inside our blue bus, parked in the sun, for over an hour while men
wearing full bacterial hazard body suits moved around agitated. Nobody would tell us what was going on. Finally the bus left at 12:50 and took us, under police escort, to our hotel, where we arrived one hour and 15 minutes later. The bus driver had several attempts at driving the bus inside the yard, but they all failed because the bus was too big to fit in easily. Finally he desisted and they let the vans carrying our luggage in the yard instead. Parked outside the gate for an eternity, we asked the police to let us walk into the hotel from the road, which was about 30 metres. They said that they couldn't because the Ministry of Health directives want them to drop us inside the hotel yard. Some passengers were fighting desperate physiological urges. One woman shouted that she could faint if she could not get to the restrooms soon. Nope. The Ministry of Health forbids.
So we had to wait another hour and half waiting for the bus driver to do miracles and squash his bus in through the gate with the added complication of avoiding the piles of suitcases scattered in the yard. When he finally managed, it was 3:30pm. We had spent some 3 and a half hours sitting with 50 other passengers in a poorly ventilated old bus. By the end most passengers had removed their masks because of the heat and lack of air. An ideal situation for contagion. If we do develop the disease in the coming days we have the Ministry of Health to thank.
The holiday deal
Once freed of the contagion trap, we made our way to be tested, interviewed and assigned a room. The hotel is closed and run by a bunch young people hired by the Ministry of Health. Obviously none of them has any previous experience in running a hotel. After waiting another couple of hours because of problems finding us a room, we finally get one. It is a bungalow facing the ocean, across a very busy and noisy coastal road. The men in virus-combat uniform explain to us that we cannot leave the room, we must clean it ourselves and we will be taken the temperature twice a day and will be tested 3 times during the 2 weeks. If we break the rules we will be punished with one or more weeks of “holidays”. This fabulous deal will cost us a mere €100 per person per day. We get to our room. It is 5:30pm. No soap, no shower gel, no bin-liners, not even the promised sanitizing and cleaning kit. “It will come, be patient” says the voice on the phone when I call for the 3rd time. There is no kitchen, not even a table and chairs. The food comes in paper bags and we try to eat it sitting on the floor, but it's cold and there is no way to reheat it. Overcooked white spaghetti with no sauce on and some mince meat with tomatoes, also cold of course, which I'm sure even my dog would refuse. Plenty of sugar and white bread though, “Sun Top” juice boxes and a very sweet inedible dessert. A wonderful healthy balanced meal indeed, which I only paid €100 for and for which, once more, I must remember to thank the Ministry of Health. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: no alcohol and no food from outside, not even fruits from a friend. Can someone tell me? Am I in a hospital? A prison?
And what's it all for?
The media are blasting alarming warnings that Covid-19 infections are going through the roof in Europe. And that's true. France and Spain are having over 8000 new infections per day, beating their record during the “hot” period of the pandemic. Italy and the UK show an average of 1500, Greece 200 and so on. Scary numbers, one may think. But there are two major differences with last March: testing and deaths.
Testing was stepped up enormously by European countries, in fact, the new tests curve steps up in parallel to the new cases. That means that a lot of these new found cases are asymptomatic and were already there before. We just know about them now.
What confirms this is the fact that the deaths have not increased. Having 7000 new infections but only 5 deaths confirms the hypothesis of some eminent doctors, that the European strand of the virus has mutated. The swabs show an infinitesimal viral load compared to the one that put the World on its knees and has lost the gene that kills. Covid-19 has become a strong but ordinary flue.
So what are we being locked up for?
Moderated by Diksha 3 years ago
Reason : Bias-driven and political comments
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