For months, Emporia Meng’s parents had been telling her to return home to Xiamen, China. 

Meng, a junior advertising major at Syracuse University, studied in New York City this semester through the Newhouse NYC program. As the coronavirus spread to the United States, her parents feared for her safety if she fell ill and medical support in the city became scarce. 

“I know it’s fine right now, but trust me, it’s going to get bad,” Meng’s father had told her. 

But Meng didn’t want to leave her classes and digital marketing internship. It wasn’t until the U.S. confirmed 3,000 cases of the coronavirus in mid-March that Meng realized she needed to leave. 

The coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has infected more than 2 million people and killed at least 13o,000 worldwide. For Meng and other Chinese students at SU, returning home involved frequent in-flight health screenings and mandatory quarantines in hotels.

Meng left her apartment in Hell’s Kitchen on March 18 equipped with hand sanitizer, gloves and a mask. Her mother and sister were already in quarantine at a hotel in Xiamen. The two had returned to the city the day before, having fled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in January as the virus spread through China.

After flying to Los Angeles, Meng arrived at her terminal for flights to Asia feeling underdressed. 

Both passengers and airline officials at the terminal were wearing gloves and masks, she said, and some were even in hazmat suits. Airline officials took passengers’ temperatures when they checked their suitcases, and anyone with a fever was turned away. She felt relieved. 

“The second I walked into that terminal, I felt so much more at ease,” she said. 

The officials took Meng’s temperature two more times — once after scanning her ticket, another upon boarding — before her flight departed at midnight for Qingdao, China. Most of the passengers, she estimated, were Chinese students like her.

Nan Li, a freshman film and screen studies major from Tianjin, China, left Syracuse for Beijing on March 16. Few airline passengers she encountered in the U.S. were as cautious as she was, Li said in an email. 

She tried to minimize her risk of infection as much as possible. She sprayed her luggage with disinfectant after each flight, despite receiving confused looks from passersby. She carried 15 masks with her, along with latex gloves and bottles of hand sanitizer. To avoid cross-contamination, Li chose not to eat any airport food, instead bringing her own energy bars.

“The whole process for me was a real-time ‘war’ (against the coronavirus),” she said.

When she landed in Beijing, Li said the difference in safety measures between the U.S. and China swept away her fears and made her instantly feel at home. Her temperature was taken immediately, and all of the customs officers wore protective clothing and goggles. 

Teresa Zhang, a sophomore international relations major, left her study abroad program in London and traveled to her home city of Chengdu, China on March 20. Her mother had told her to wear protective clothing and to avoid eating, drinking or using the bathroom while on her flight, Zhang said in an email. 

“I would say it was quite a journey,” she said.  

On her 14-hour flight to Qingdao, airline officials on Meng’s flight took extra precautions, which she found comforting. Passengers were required to wear masks provided for free, and each person’s temperature was taken every four to five hours. If a passenger used the bathroom, they were given gloves to discard afterward. Food was provided in sterilized bags. 

Meng was unable to disembark for three hours after her flight landed. Men in hazmat suits came onto the plane to take the passengers’ temperatures. Everyone on board the flight had to complete digital and paper forms stating their identity, purpose of travel and where they’d been in the last two weeks.

After completing a health screening interview inside, Meng and the rest of her flight were sent through immigration and detained for two to three hours, she said. A medical worker informed her that some passengers had developed fevers and other COVID-19 symptoms while in the air, and one was sent to the hospital. The flight was designated as “high-risk,” she said.

Meng and the rest of the passengers later took buses and vans to hotels in Qingdao to begin a mandatory two-week quarantine. Rather than going into quarantine in Xiamen, where her family was, Meng was about a two-hour flight away. After traveling for a day and a half, Meng checked into a hotel that was converted into a quarantine facility. 

“The second I got into my room, I bawled my eyes out,” she said.  

Safety measures remained strict inside the hotel. On a chart outside of her door, Meng’s temperature was recorded three times a day, along with her bowel movements. She was given bottles of toilet disinfectant and provided three hot meals daily. Air conditioning and heat were shut off, so her window was required to be open for at least 30 minutes a day. 

Meng’s experience was rough at first, she said. It took four days for her to get comfortable enough to get into a routine. 

“I felt like I was being enclosed in a space, and it was really boring,” she said. “I felt like I was going crazy at first, but then I got used to it.” 

She was also unsure of her health. Having traveled on a high-risk plane, Meng was tested for COVID-19 three times. Each test came back negative. 

Shiyu Zhang, a freshman sociology major, left Syracuse for Shanghai on March 23. Her hotel quarantine experience was lonely, boring and stressful, she said in an email. She couldn’t do most of her homework or read classroom content in her isolated hotel, and taking tests online was challenging. 

After her first two days in quarantine, Teresa Zhang was sent to another hotel because she tested negative for COVID-19. Like Meng, she was given three meals a day, but was not allowed to order delivery. Her temperature was taken twice a day. To pass the time, she did homework, watched videos and did simple workouts. 

“Everyone knows what they are doing, and the government is doing a great job sending everyone to the hotel and testing every single one of them,” she said.  

The Chinese government’s approach is more forceful and annoying, but it is necessary and the only way to address the pandemic, said Vera Zhou, a junior finance major from Shanghai who studied abroad in London this semester.

Although challenging, Meng said she was grateful to finally be in a safe place where more precautions were being taken.

“I’m honestly just appreciative because I know there are people in much worse situations than I am now,” she said while in hotel quarantine.

Meng flew home to Xiamen on April 3 and reunited with her family. The city is mostly back to normal, Meng said, with people returning to work and going outside. China’s collective efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 are partly why the country has recovered so quickly, she said.

“It feels so good,” she said. “I’m just so happy to be with my family and to be safe and everything.”

Published on April 15, 2020 at 2:14 pm

Contact Austin: [email protected] | @AustinCLamb