Wexford teacher says China is now safest place in the world
Wexford teacher Kathy Kane who is currently working for a school in the city of Suzhou in China, said the country is now probably the safest place in the world, as numbers of coronavirus cases decrease following weeks of strict containment measures.
‘Numbers are decreasing here. My province (Jiangsu in East China) has been downgraded to level 2. The virus is not mutating and they believe it is dying out due to a lack of hosts’, said Kathy who is on a sabbatical from Scoil Mhuire in Coolcotts, Wexford. She is based in Suzhou with her husband, the artist Declan Cody.
‘Restaurants and businesses are starting to re-open fully but containment measures are still strictly enforced. We now all have an individual code - red, green or orange - given to us from an App that has tracked our travel patterns. The colour code is demanded for entry everywhere as well as temperature testing, phone number and passport etc’.
‘You have a green code if you have’t left the province or China, orange if you have travelled outside of China which requires 7-14 days quarantine and red means you should be in isolation’.
‘You have to show your code in order to get a didi (taxi), to go on the metro or anywhere public.’
‘ To summarise, China is the safest place to be. The rest of the world which has not restricted travel is going to have serious problems’, Kathy predicted.
‘Italy is one of the worst for citizens flouting government attempts to restrict movement.’
She said many tourist sites which have been closed for several weeks, were due to reopen last weekend.
‘But the authorities are still very cautious and there is the same level of control over movement’.
The school where Kathy teaches has been closed since January 22 (when it shut for Chinese New Year holidays and didn’t re-open as scheduled on February 5) and she is cntinuing to teach students online from her apartment.