On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. Some countries had already locked down and others were rapidly following suit. Many countries in Europe were experiencing run-away infections; parts of Italy were isolated from the rest of the country to contain the spread. Economic life in the U.S. came to a screeching halt as people scrambled for toilet paper and then shut themselves inside their homes. The news was almost incomprehensible from a pre-pandemic mindset.
Two days after the WHO declared the pandemic and as we watched the world roil, Heidi and I went for the weekend to a resort in Batam, Indonesia. In our defense, it was Heather and Jamie’s idea. Life in Singapore was still nearly normal, with very few infections and no panic. That’s not to say we weren’t aware of what was happening, but it felt elsewhere. We did, however, pack our computers and anything we might need to continue working online, in case borders shut with little notice and we weren’t able to get back to Singapore in time.
There were six in our group: us, Heather & Jaime, and Holly & Scott (Heidi’s twin sister and her husband). Holly and Scott worked at the same school in China with us, and had returned to the States for the Lunar New Year holiday to visit family and friends. Like us, they chose not to return to China immediately, as the virus exploded. They drifted between Airbnb properties in Washington State and Vancouver, B.C., but found the time difference for online teaching unworkable. They had recently arrived in Singapore, and were now living in a condo in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, just across the strait from Singapore. A colleague of Heather and Jamie owned the empty condo, and she generously offered it gratis.
Over the course of that weekend we enjoyed massages, swimming in the pool, an excursion to the city center, and restaurant food. Life felt almost normal. However, as Heidi and I packed our small bags at the end of the two days, we speculated that this would be our last “play” trip for some time, that the chaos across the globe and its resulting restrictions would come nearer to us. We had no frame of reference to understand just how much everything would be disrupted, and for how long.
As the boat returning us to Singapore punched its way through the afternoon chop of the Singapore Strait, Heather checked her phone. The Singapore government had just announced that the border would close at midnight; we were slipping back into the city/state just a few hours before the deadline. After clearing immigration, Heidi and I checked our fresh passport stamps, noting that we’d both been given a further 90 days (it could have been 30 or 60). We assumed we’d be gone well before then; technically, we were still planning to be at the wedding in the U.S. in May, though we knew that was no longer likely. Otherwise, we’d head back to China in fairly short order. Still, we were glad to have the full 90 days, just in case. After all, there was a global pandemic.