So there has been a complete change in game plan.
We have been told all of the folks sent to the hospital this week have tested NEGATIVE for H1N1. We are all happy that everyone is healthy and that the symptoms were any combination of side effects from moving to a new country and not swine flu.
In spite of that, we are all being put into solitary confinement, and will only be allowed to leave our rooms to go to the bathroom. They have announced they will be posting guards in the hallways, and anyone caught outside for an unreasonable amount of time will have to start their quarantine over.
The duration now is seven days from today. I’m one of the lucky ones that a) I have a laptop and the internet works in my room and b) I get to stay with my roommate as there are only two of us and niether of us is showing symptoms. (Some of the rooms have up to four people in them, but they will all be slpit up. Several people do not have their own computers or cell phones, so will have no way to keep in contact with people.)
The questions being raised by several of the folks in the quaranine are as follows:
1. We were supposed to be quarantined seven days from the last day we had contact with the positive person.
2. That person was removed from training the very first day and put in the hospital and treated. We’ve heard she’s doing great.
3. That was seven days ago. So technically none of us has had contact with a positive person in seven days and no one here is showing elevated temp. or major symptoms.
4. So why do we have to do another full seven days, with ramped up security and even more isolation? (Never mind the poor folks who are under house arrest).
I can unerstand another couple of days for show and just to make absolutely sure, but seven full days in isolation in small, really hot rooms? Of course we as quarantine folks don’t have all the details, and the goal is to not get anyone sick, but when does something just get way out of hand?
I had deleted the post I put this story in, but now I think it is really relevant. I do not put this in to cause heresay or panic, but I think it has become important:
J. got his test results from the hospital by phone: the spots were left from a harmless fungal infection. (yeah!) He called the hospital to tell the nurse he couldn’t come in for his appointment, and she told him that the hospital had not been informed that we were here, or what had happened to us. She had noticed that a couple of the girls were sick in our group, but they had not been told by the school or by the government agency keeping us that it was a possible swine flu breakout.
If we are such a public threat that we have to be held for another seven days even after eight people testing negative, shouldn’t the hospital we spent an afternoon at with a very nice nurse who helped almost all of us be informed?
I bring these points up to start a dialog about consistency and how this is going to effect foreigners working in Korea in the future, not to complain or start rumors.
Update: I just saw this in the comments thread of RJKeohler’s Blog:
A friend of mine who works for EPIK got an email this afternoon saying:
“This is to let you know that ALL foreign teachers who enter the country after May 11, 2009 are required to do a home quarantine for 7 days before returning to school.
During the quarantine, you are required to stay home and wear a mask if leaving the house temporarily to run errands such as grocery shopping. At the end of the 7 day quarantine, you must visit a public health clinic for a final checkup.”
Another blog with interesting commentary.
Kimchi Ice-Cream just sent me a link to another blog that really should be looked at. Also Kimchi has some great information about H1N1, treatment, world health guidelines and so forth.
Quote from above blog:
Her: “Joy! Do you have the H1?”
Me: “What are you talking about?”
Her: “The pig virus, do you have any symptoms?”
Me: “No.” (serious and confused look)
Me: “Why?”
Her: “Somebody is asking, there are some cases.”
And she proceeded to tell them something on the phone and then we continued class.
The above teacher has nothing, nothing at all to do with any of the people in quarantine. They don’t work at the same school, they have never met any of us, for all I know they are not even in the same city as any of the teacher’s from the quarantine.
When I thought there was an overreation to our group being rounded up and bused back to a central quarantine, I have a feeling it will be nothing compared to the discrimination that is coming. One thing that has been pointed out over and over is that his could have happened anywhere. We have yet to see if taking care of patients and potential patients is going to be done with education, or with discrimination and fear.
I think teachers who run into this kind of situation should post about it so that we know how far reaching it is really getting. Those of us in quarantine really only know what is happening in here. A couple of people have blogged or e-mailed to me that they are seriously reconsidering taking visits to the states or Canada because of complications getting back in. Hopefully because of the precations taken with our group, it won’t affect the rest of the instructors around the country like that.
Just to answer a few questions and make a few clarifications:
When I mentioned that blood was drawn, that was during our training period for the mandatory medical exam, not as part of the quarantine.
They sprayed all our rooms, hallways, bathrooms, with chemicals today. Although they said the chemicals may cause coughing, which is the main symptom they are looking for when deciding to put people in individual quarantine.
The staff has been really helpful with getting us food that appeals to our western taste, providing hot water for tea, and bottled water. We’re really comfortable (well, except maybe the smokers).
Kimchi Ice Cream to answer one of the questions on your blog, there has been very little face mask protocol. They are having a hard time just getting people to wear them, never mind following things like washing before taking them on or off. We’ve all had the same face masks on for days (although there are some others available somewhere). Some people really want to get sick so that they can go the hospital and just get the whole proces over with, some people really don’t think they will/can get sick, mostly people are in a good/positive mood and I just don’t think there is a huge sense of urgency.
I think the point was not so much to isolate us from each other, unless someone gets really sick, but to keep us isolated from the general public. We had already had so much interaction with each other it would be pretty irrelevant. The one thing I am confused about is why none of the staff of the training center, or the trainers that were the classrooms with us were required to come here. There is speculation that they were trusted with monitering their own home quarantine. (We just got word that all the adminstrators, trainors, and other people that came in contact are under house quarantine.)
Although two people have tried to get out (not seriously to run away, but as a joke), one was on accident. Apparenlty one young man went out to sneak a smoke, and the door to the fire escape locked behind him. He then tried to scale the side of the building to get back in a window, and then fell through what he thought was a roof top of a smaller building, but was actually just a canvas tarp. He was taken to the hospital for minor scraps and bumps, but then brought back here. There is a rumor that the nurse at the hospital touched his open arm wound with her bare hand.
They just informed us that they are bringing our text books so that we can prepare for our classes for when we get out of here. I guess that means they probably aren’t going to deport us?
I would also like to clarify that everything I post on here is my opinion and observation and not that of the group. There may be people with very different perspectives from mine. I had started blogging about this to keep my family informed, but it seems to have drawn a bit more attention, and is in no way meant to be taken as factual news. Most of what we are experiencing here is heresay and rumor anyway. Especially given that we have been informed that it is Korean culture to keep patients out of the loop until absolutly necessary.
Filed under: South Korea Quarantine, Travel | Tags: H1N1, quarantine, South Korea, swine flu
…. And starts over.
Every day a person comes down sick, our nine days of lockdown starts over again. If they keep brining in new people, a person who doesn’t get sick could be here indefinitely. If you have a natural immunity, or alread had a flu at some point and aren’t as suseptable, and they keep bringing new people in, we could be here forever. The best way to get out is to either get sick or fake getting sick, do your nine days of solitary confinement in a hospital, and be on your merry way.
Of course now all the rumors are flying about whether we are going to have jobs after this, whether parents are going to start pulling students out of schools, and the biggest one of all – a rumor that every American instructor coming over will be placed in quarantine before being allowed to continue to their posts.
One of the instructors here tried to get in touch with the embassy just to make sure they knew we were being held. The care is fine, they just thought that, in case the Korean government hadn’t told them, that they might want to be made aware. Here is the post of their conversaion.
Apparenlty they don’t care.
It’s only day two and things are getting pretty stinky around here. Our trash is considered bio-hazard and they haven’t found a company qualified to come take it away yet, so the usual efficient Korean recycling system has gone out of the window, and stinking bags of trash are in every corner (all the food they bring us comes in extensive packaging materials, so that is why the garbage is accumilating so quickly.)
So we are officially still nine days away from starting work, or getting deported. Oh, and they’ve declared that anyone who smokes is not allowed, which has caused a huge uproar amoung a bunch of people who are already stressed out. I’m not a huge fan of smoking, but now doesn’t seem to be the time to make a fuss about it.
Oh yea, and we ran out of coffee.
The thing that makes this all pointless, is that we are allowed to socialize, which is great for our mental well-being, but not really a quarantine. Plus they use the same thermometer to take our temps. twice a day, barely cleaning it with an alcohol swap and not giving it time to dry.
When we all had to get our blood drawn together at the hospital, none of the nurses wore gloves, and one was even caught wiping a blood drip of one guy’s arm with her bare hand.
Needless to say, this is making it really hard for all of us to take this seriously and follow what appears to be fairly arbitrary rules. We’ve been told we’re getting moved again, that they can’t hold us here because this isn’t what this building is intended for.
A couple of the people that tested positive for “a flu virus”, not necessarily swine flu, got sick and got over it within a twelve hour period. This hardly seems “deadly disease” some folks were accused of having two days ago. I can understand them not wanting even a regular flu virus to get out to the public, as it interferes with general life and is dangerous to people who are already sick, but it’s really hard not to view this whole situation as a huge overreaction.
Since I’m just making lists in my head of points I wanted to make to you now, I think I’ll just close for now and continue later when I’ve formulated a better story…..
Filed under: South Korea Quarantine, Travel | Tags: H1N1, Pandemic, quarantine, South Korea, swine flu
This is my view for the next nine days. The pink hue is either from the batteries in my camara dying, or the ionic biosphere they have constructed to contain our highly deadly western dragon breath.
To answer some of the questions I’ve received on comments and in personal e-mails.
1. I absolutely believe this is at least partially (if not mostly) a power grab. The first thing the head adminstrator said when we arrived at the quarantine facility was that they have not tried a quarantine of this scale before, and that “Japan and America have both failed at containing the flu virus. We are going to prove that we will not fail, but succeed at this.” My fear is that they are going to make a habit of quaranting every new group of teachers that comes across border just for the hell of it.
2. As to my being sick or not: I was feeling really sick on Friday, but not in a flu-like way. I believe it was a combination of pure exhaustion from the training, and from my apparent strong allergy to the “yellow dust” everyone talks about. Everytime I step outside I immedietly start sneezing, coughing, get congested, and feel tired, but when I go back inside, it clears up within a half hour. Especially since my temp. doesn’t change, I seem to have demonstrated enough of a dog and pony show to the nurses this morning to prove that I don’t need to be put in private isolation as some poor souls have been.
In some ways it has been a relief after last week to just get to sleep and read. I spent the morning: drinking instant coffee, reading Harry Potter, went back to sleep for three hours, hung out with J., read Harry Potter, drank some tea, went back to sleep, and now I’m writing to you.
I think that may be a pretty sad statement to the school training that many people here is relieved to be in lockdown as opposed to having to start work after how hellish last week was. Several people are afraid to start their jobs because they are afraid of the critism and energy output if it is anything like what we just went though. That’s what we get for picking the highest paying company instead of the one that looked like it suited our personalities best.
The worst part about all of this is how woefully misinformed the Korean public and officials seem to be about how dangerous H1N1 really is or how to handle the situation. I think the biggest problem with the virus is more that it spreads so quickly. Areas want to make sure to keep up with treatment supplies, not that it is necessarily deadly or untreatable. One of the teachers had already been sent to his placement in Busan, which is at least 4 hours by train. He arrived at midnight on Friday, and was woken up early Sat. morning by a woman wearing a facemask in an absolute panic who told him he “was infected with a very deadly disease” and that he must leave for Seoul immediatly. First of all, there is no proof that he was ever in contact with any of the sick people, and second of all, telling someone they are going to die is not a good way to deal with kind of situation.
He was then rushed by ambulance, with the siren on almost the whole way, from Busan to Incheon (where we are all being held), and told several times that he had a deadly disease. But of course when he got here they treated him like the rest of us: took his temperature, told him to wear a facemask when around other people, and, by the way, have a nice stay.
Today they declared that we all have “supresed symptoms of the virus.” They have absolutly no proof of that, a lot of the people here had no contact with the sick people, and may not have anything at all. Some of the folks aren’t even supposed to be here. There were a group of people that got to the hotel for NEXT week’s training, that got caught up and told by the school they had to go into quarantine as well, even though they had never met any of us. They were told by the nurses this morning that {the school} was wrong, they hadn’t had exposure so there was no need for them to come, but now that they are here, they may have been exposed and can’t leave. Classic Korean misinformation.
So we are here for at least nine days, although, as you can see, they wireless internet for us. We are quite comfortable despite the food we are not really used to and the lack of shower stalls (I guess it’s supposed to be bathhouse style where everyone just gets naked?). But other than that it’s like a stay at a really, really boring camp.
Somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised if any officials saw me taking these pictures if someone wouldn’t try to come and confiscate my camera.
It’s official, we made the news. Although we had been told that a girl was showing symptoms but what kind of flu it was hadn’t been confirmed, the news report says different. But this is South Korea where information flow is particularly bad. Someone else just saw it on national TV news that we will be kept in the hotel until the 30th, of course we have no way of knowing if that is true or not.
I need to point out that I have several friends who are living here, and have been living here for years, and have had great experiences. We just happened to draw an unlucky straw with a particularly intense school situation and unexpected medical crisis. Hopefully soon we will get to enjoy living here, it is a pretty fascinating place, which after I’m released from hotel lockdown, I may be able to share with you. 😉
So since we’ve been in South Korea, it has been a hellish week of the most intense teacher training I have ever heard of a group of foriegn students having. I won’t go into it now but if {our school} is really hell bent on pushing their curriculum, they need to have a longer training where there is more time to study (and in this case, not get the entire group of teachers really sick from exhaustion.) They have a lesson plan and curriculum they’ve developed that the teachers are required to teach down to the minute. We have a lesson plan that literaly is divided into mintue by minute instructions and if we miss any or deviate, we can be penalized in pay or hours. It’s pretty ridiculous, never mind that their mission is to “encourage creative thinking in the students”, and they really are effectivley doing the opposite.
So we had to get medical exams when we came to the country before we can get Alien Registration Cards. Jim’s chest x-ray showed some spots (light not dark) on his lungs, and they are holding him for testing over the weekend before he can teach to rule out pnemonia, TB, cancer….. Who jumps from pnemonia to cancer? So that was a huge amount of added stress.
Now it’s 4am and they went around to all our doors and woke us up. Apparenlty someone from the training session may have tested positive for H1N1. Now we all have to get up and be tested and fill out a bunch of paperwork. I’m sick. Half the session got sick, and although someone may have brought in a virus, I really don’t think any of us would have gotten nearly as sick as we have if [our hagwan] hadn’t pushed us through jet lag, new air quality, with a crazy training schedule that exhausted and depleted all of us.
So two people were diagnosed with walking pnemonia, two people had to go back for catscans and chest exrays because of spots, and now we all of the swine flu. I’m starting to think this country is a bunch of overreacting, paranoid, hypochondriacs.
But, if they swine flu does show up in South Korea, you’ll know where it came from.
6am Update: Some government officials just came to the hotel and put us all under quarantine. We’re now not allowed to leave the hotel, and have to all stay in seperate rooms to keep from spreading stuff to each other. So that’s that. I’m going back to bed.
Filed under: Travel
Typical Side Street
There isn’t too much to report, but I thought you might like to see some typical street shots. Bright lights, flashing neon, and a Body Shop, Duncan Donuts, and Starbucks on almost every corner. Our hotel is in Gangnam, not exactly a cultural mecca. It is considered an affluent neighborhood, which I’m taking to mean there is not much here except places to shop and spend lots of money. I wanted to take the subway down to some cool old palaces downtown, but that didn’t happen as I had to spend the morning studying the English language, of which I appear to know very little about. I had a discussion with another English instructor yesterday about how we instincutally know how to speak English, but acutally know next to nothing about how to break it down, explain the parts, and teach it.
The pressure is especially on since the company we were hired through has now told us that we have to pass a series of tests to ensure our placement (I’m not sure how they can pull that since we’ve already signed contracts.) They say that between 12 and 20% of folks in a class don’t pass, and that makes their contract null and void. You go home on your own dime.
So my learning Korean is on hold for re-learning the acutal rules of English.
I had lunch at a great little hole in the wall down a side street. No English menu, no one in the restaurant spoke even one word of it, but with a lot of smiling and gesturing, we sat down to a meal of great side dishes and k’ognamulguk – a soup made of pork ribs, glass noodles, and vegetables.
Oh yea, and I swear soda is less sweet. I usually hate soda, but I don’t mind the Coke, they must make it with real sugar as opposed to the corn crap that has completely taken over the American diet.
Filed under: Travel
Jim and I were up at 3am on Thursday to catch a flight in Columbus, OH to Chicago, IL to change airlines in San Francisco to Singapore Air to land at our final destination: Seoul, South Korea.
I love flying over the US. The checkerboarded farmland looks so much more interesting from the sky then from a car. The openess and diversity of the landscape is really obvious and makes for all kinds of speculation on cultural values linked to space, invention, and the free spirit. One of the amazing things about flying over the western part of the country in particular, is how little of the US has actually been developed. We flew for hours without seeing much besides some farms and wide open patches of contrasting mountains and desert.
The Rockies
A town butting up the Sierra Nevadas
After all that wide open space; the crowded coastal city San Francisco:
On the flight, I had been confused when I booked the tickets. It looked like I had to choose a meal, and they all had weird descriptions like no sodium, lowfat, bland …. I picked Hindu, because I know I like Indian food. Well, it turns out I didn’t have to pick anything, it was only for special requests, so our meal comes out, different from everyone else’s around us and Jim is quite suspicious of the meat. I’m pretty sure it was goat.
Hocking Hills in southeastern Ohio is famous for a unique geologic form called recess caves. These aren’t really true caves, as they are not underground, but were formed by softer layers of sand sediment being washed away from the undersides of cliff faces during the period of glacial retreat.
Jim and one of his longtime friends brought a small bunch of us to a private area they discovered and have been coming to for almost ten years. It is not in a public area and has only a small trail blazed by them to an area with a couple of large recess caves tucked away in the woods. There were still remnants of their last fire and some cans they had left (naughty, naughty).
When we got there, what used to be a lush forest for as long as Jim could remember, had been rented to a logging company. Although the caves were still in the woods, the first mile had been clear cut. “Rented” seems an interesting word, as they may be renting the land, the trees themselves don’t come back.
Entrance to our first cave:
Second “cave” split rock:
Our friend Josh, who could start a forest fire with nothing but a rumor and his mouth, led the rest of our party to believe that we were bringing them to this second cave so that Jim could propose to me. We’ve had much different things on our mind what with the intercontinental move, but it made for an entertaining afternoon.
Ruby Ramblings 