The Pandemic Hits

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Marie Curie.

Closed due to Pandemic

It was around 1 am on March 12 when I heard my cell phone ringing in the distance. I ignored it till it rang again and my wife elbowed me to get out of bed to see who was calling that late. I looked at the messages and saw that my son-in-law had called and left a message saying, “Trump will shut down the border by midnight Friday March 13 because of the Corona pandemic”.  

My family -- three daughters, seven grandchildren, my wife and I -- were scattered throughout Europe after attending a family reunion in the Netherlands, celebrating the 100^th birthday of my wife’s mother. Our oldest daughter, her husband and three young children were still in the Netherlands. Our youngest daughter, her husband, and their three children were somewhere in Switzerland.  Our middle daughter, her husband and nine-year old little girl were with me and my spouse in Lisbon, Portugal. Portugal was deemed to be the “safest place,” as no Corona virus cases had been identified (yet) when we made our reservations a few weeks prior. Both our second and youngest daughter had changed their travel plans to exclude Italy which was initially on the itinerary. Their decision turned out to be wise, as that country was being shut down. 

Famous Lisbon trolley

That is when our scramble to get back the US started. My wife and I were supposed to return on Saturday, March 14^.  Based on the notice online it appeared that citizens and residents would be allowed back in after March 13, but we did not want to take a chance. I called American Airlines immediately and was told there was a two hour wait for a representative, so I decided to hang in, put them on the speaker phone and dozed off. After 90 minutes, the hold music stopped - my phone’s battery had run out. I called back and was put in line, but this time, I selected a call back.  I was called two hours later. After explaining my wish to change flights, I was put on hold while the representative called another department that would re-issue the ticket. For the next two hours, she checked back with me every 10 minutes or so with an update, thanking me for my patience.  A real person was taking care of us.  A total of six hours later, the changes were set, and I went back to sleep for one hour before dawn broke.

The good news was that almost all airlines changed their policies due to the pandemic and did not charge change fees, which would have been between $200 and $300 per ticket under normal circumstances. However, the bad news was that one still had to pay the difference between the initial ticket price and the last-minute walk-up fare. In our case it was less than $1000 for both of us, a little bit more than the international calling charges on my cell phone, which ended up being $900. However, being able to apply the price of the initial ticket towards the change assumes that you can get hold of the airline and talk with a real person to issue a new ticket. My daughter in Lisbon was not that lucky.  She and her family flew on United; every time they called the airline, its system hung up on them after two hours. They ended up buying a completely new one-way ticket for the three of them on-line which set them back $9000.

Our youngest daughter was looking into new one-way tickets for her family, which would have cost them $10,000 -- more than three times the price they had initially paid for the round trip fare, so they decided to keep calling United, as they packed in the early morning and started driving from Switzerland through southern France back to Amsterdam. Their cell phone connection dropped in the mountains, but eventually they were able to get their flights changed. At least they were able to use the “equity” in their initial tickets. The same was true for my oldest daughter who was able to contact American Airlines after several hours and changed the return of their oldest son who was supposed to stay with us for an extra day.  That way, they avoided breaking up the family as they crossed the Atlantic.

Waiting for the (few) customers

In the meantime, my wife and decided to make the best of our stay in Lisbon as we still had a full day to explore the city. All museums were closed, so the only things one could visit were churches and the exteriors of historic buildings. There were very few tourists left. The night before, we had dinner in the old part of town in a deserted dining room, listening to a Fado singer, who gave us a private concert. Fado means “fate” in Portuguese and is the folk music of Lisbon's rustic neighborhoods. It includes ballads of lost sailors, broken hearts, and bittersweet romance. How applicable were these fateful songs as local families were now hurting, because many of them rely on the tourist industry. When I asked our Uber driver how he was doing, he said “terrible.”  He had been driving since 8 AM, and at 11 AM, we were only his third ride. At the main plaza, we saw many taxis and little tuk-tuks lined up and waiting in front of all the tourist places.

No tourists....

During our last day in Portugal, our family started to return to the United States. Our middle daughter and her family had left Lisbon through London, then to Newark, and back to Dallas. The only thing they were asked upon arrival in Newark was if they had been in China or Italy in the past few weeks. Our middle daughter and her family went back through London and from there, direct to Dallas.  My wife and I had changed our flights to reach Dallas through Philadelphia, but I got a text the morning of departure that there would be a three-hour delay. Later I found out there had been maintenance issues with that plane, not unusual for American Airlines. We took the few extra hours in Amsterdam to shop for some last-minute chocolate and Dutch cheese. As we came into the supermarket, I noticed the shelves for toilet paper were empty. I was surprised, not knowing what was going on in the US.  When we finally boarded our plane, we learned we were on the last flight out of Amsterdam before the midnight deadline.

Our youngest daughter did not beat the deadline.  She and her family were scheduled to go back on March 14 because all flights were full on March 13.  But because their flight was going to Houston, and Houston was not prepared for the additional health screening that had become mandatory, they were rerouted to Chicago, one of the seven ports of entry at that time designated to handle European flights. And that is where the chaos began for them. I am not sure how many passengers arrived in Chicago that day from Europe -- probably thousands.  They were all forced to wait in long lines to get through an intake system totally unprepared for the sudden crowds and the new screening requirements. If you hadn’t picked up a potential virus infection in a semi-crowded plane, you definitely would have gotten it by being packed in a small area for anywhere between four and eight hours, especially stressful with small children. Anyway, our youngest daughter’s family made it through, found another flight back home to Dallas, and started their voluntary two-week self-quarantine at home.

I have dealt with other virus outbreaks before, but none of those affected my daily life as

Singapore harbor at night

much as this one. The first was the SARS virus, which broke out a few weeks before I was going to teach a seminar in Singapore. The meeting was postponed till a few months later, at which time there were still precautions in place. Upon arrival at the airport, I went through a gate which could scan your temperature through a camera/sensor. At the seminar itself, held at a hotel conference room, there were representatives from the government health department who took the temperature of each participant every day prior to their entry to the meeting. It was very well managed and did not interrupt the meeting. 

Mexico City, main plaza, Cathedral

The only other impact I experienced from SARS was during a trip to Mexico during that same period, when I thought that a three-hour layover in Mexico City would be enough to change to a second flight.  I was wrong.  After going through the health screening and subsequent security screening, I ran to the gate and discovered I had to change terminals. A porter noticed my confusion and guided me through the bus, additional security, and check-in line, waving a seemingly important looking badge which cost me $50. But I made that last flight to my destination.

Riyadh Kingdom towers
conference ctr

The second virus outbreak I encountered was the MERS-corona virus which started in the Middle East. I was teaching a seminar at a conference center in Saudi Arabia at that time and tried to contact one of my old students to pay a visit at her hospital, as I typically try to do a tour to see what I can learn to apply in my local training.  But she emailed me back that all non-essential personnel, including herself, was not working. I ended up visiting anyway and meeting with the main department administrator, who was very scared and washing his hands every hour or so. I then realized that visiting that facility might not have been such a good idea. My training went flawlessly, otherwise.

But these prior experiences did not prepare me for the COVID-19 pandemic, because they did not have direct impact on my family.  We were glad we went to Europe at that time to attend a significant family reunion.  The children and grandchildren will remember it for the rest of their lives.  My youngest daughter’s husband told me they weren’t worried until they were in the plane with coughing people around them and when they had to wait for many hours in Chicago. My biggest fear was not being able to get home and being stranded, similar to what I felt when I was stuck in a different city during 9/11, i.e. a feeling of being totally powerless and subject to what our government decides.  But that is food for another story. When I read Marie Curie’s quote, that nothing in life is to be feared, only understood, I kind of got it. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less in the future.