COVID-19 is the name of the virus that is bringing the world to its knees right now. Unfortunately, it is not an exaggeration. Europe is under a quarantine – homes locked, flights cancelled, havoc on. Surely, we did not expect that of 2020 and, surely, we will remember it for a long time.

I am going to do a quick recap of the events and then share an interesting story given by our BUas lecturer Lothar Zhou. At the end of December, public health officials from China informed the World Health Organization that they had a problem: an unknown, new virus was causing pneumonia-like illness in the city of Wuhan. The never before identified in humans virus got its name- COVID-19. Since December Europe is also suffering greatly. The uncertainty is making people anxious as to what the future holds, and some believe that the pandemic in Europe is going to last longer than Asia. Impossible to prove, of course.

Lothar Zhou is one of our lecturers and was in China at the time of the outbreak.

“I had to stay put due to the terrible and fast-spreading coronavirus in Wuhan Hubei province. My city was virtually shut-down due to the close distance to Wuhan. The disease was affecting over 60 million people the least. The info we received from the gov had been extremely limited and non-transparent.”

He shares that there has been a lot of mystery surrounding the pandemic. Being scared at such a moment is the most natural thing to experience. How are people being affected? How can we keep ourselves safe? When is it going to end? Those questions are above our heads now in Europe. Lothar Zhou says it right – “here is just the beginning”.

When finally able to fly back to the Netherlands troubles continued for him. He got two cancelled flights- KML and Lufthansa were not flying. In this story, the third flight was the charm and he was on his way from Beijing to Amsterdam. He shared that the airport in China was like a “ghost town”, empty and devoid of normality. In contract, Schiphol airport was running as usual and not a single passenger was checked after disembarking the plane. Is it then safe for us? Who gets checked?

“I am not familiar with the Dutch system and how it is going to work out. But we have to believe that there is a plan.”

BUas was the one to take the necessary measures and asked Lothar to verify his condition with the GP and despite his good results was recommended to undergo isolation. Lothar himself agrees that is an excellent decision. No precautions are too much. In a way, he is experiencing round two of the pandemics. China lockdown, Netherlands lockdown. He is home like everyone else but being isolated for two months would take a toll on everyone.

“There is going to be a huge psychological impact on everyone.”

We must be safe, take the necessary measures and try to fill the time with satisfactory activities. Mental health is just as important as physical. Lothar Zhou shared even more with me on the matter. The discussion of the coronavirus and its part in our life now, can be found in the next article coming to you soon.