WE MUST LEARN FROM POLICE RULE HERE IN CHINA
Former England and Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Carlton Palmer now works for an international school in Shanghai. Here he explains how life in China has been affected by the coronavirus crisis…
WE WERE called back to Shanghai this week. My wife Lucy and I flew via Moscow and were taken to a facility for testing when we landed in China. We stood in line as doctors and nurses took our temperatures. The process took 20 minutes. We tested negative but were asked to spend the night in a hotel before we could go. We were home in our apartment by 10am the next day. Even though we have been tested and we don’t have the virus we have to spend the next two weeks in quarantine. I only left my apartment to collect a delivery from the gate and had a call from police on our compound to say they would have to put us in complete isolation if we did not stay indoors. When they tell you to stay in you cannot go out. They make sure of that. All the compounds are policed. The neighbours have sent gifts of fresh food and tissues. China is coming out of its lockdown. The only new cases being reported are those cases coming into the country from overseas as people from different companies return here to work. Now you can’t get back into the country if you test positive. It seems to have been brought well under control here. We were on holiday when the country went into lockdown during Chinese New Year at the end of January and managed to get back to the UK on one of the last flights out of Shanghai. Wellington College, the international school where I work, has been closed since. It reopened for staff this week and they are getting ready for students to return. Life is getting back to normal. Shanghai is more than 500 miles from the epicentre of the outbreak in Wuhan and it was never too bad — but they have dealt with it well. The people have been tested and been through quarantine. The shops and restaurants are open again. As we came from the airport we saw children on their horses at the nearby horse-riding school. When our quarantine is over they will test us again and if we test negative we will be allowed to go out and about. I don’t understand why so many people in the UK refuse to adhere to the rules. It is very frightening at a time when you see the cases spreading. My dad has had three heart attacks and it was his birthday on Saturday — but I knew I couldn’t go to see him before I left. It isn’t worth the risk. I hope everybody in the UK realises how serious it is. As we can see in China, normality will return if everyone does the right thing.
MCarlton was talking to Matt Barlow