I’ve been a DailyKos reader every day since 2003 when I was looking for Howard Dean info (member #3013!). I have never written a diary. I returned Thursday morning from 3+ weeks out of a planned 4 week vacation with friends in South Africa and family in Botswana. Here’s my story and it ain’t pretty:
I speak only from what I observed from afar and what I encountered traveling in Africa and then upon returning home to Boston this morning, Thursday.
I was in South Africa, Botswana, and Ethiopia, the last overnight Wednesday/Thursday in transit. Every place I was in Africa was doing a plethora of things that were entirely absent at my entry at JFK in NYC or in Boston on a domestic flight of fewer than 20 people upgraded informally to first class for lack of travelers. I was also in transit through Ivory Coast and Ghana without leaving the plane (the last a weird unrelated side trip). Nowhere but South Africa had even a single reported case. Do you think that was for lack of interest or resources? Think again.
I knew I was flying into a storm. All of Africa has fewer reported cases than my home state of Massachusetts, and with jury-rigged plans, I now had to transit through a major world epicenter, New York. Not because I was fearful of where I was but because I was fearful of being kicked out or not able to re-enter the U.S. I was deeply concerned about traveling through several countries with multitudes from all over the world in airports and airplanes, only to arrive in New York, but I knew I had to get home.
Here is what happening in Africa: they are terrified of travelers from Europe or America. They are closing borders, revoking visas, relentlessly checking entrants. Every airport I was in during the last week has at least the following: required self-reporting of symptoms and countries visited in the last 14 days, “fever guns” checking everyone’s forehead, massive public health notices. The COVID-19 response was a separate setup before you even get to passport control.
I arrived at JFK exactly at midnight, Wednesday/Thursday. Nothing about COVID-19. Nada, zilch, zip. No public health notices. No self-reporting. No questions about where I had been. No separate COVID-19 checkpoint. Ditto Boston on a domestic flight after a short hotel stay last night.
Worse, I found a general internal public sense that the issue from abroad was the need for self-quarantine upon return. This is not only not true, but completely misleading. I have followed state department and CDC sites and news from abroad and was completely unaware that people here thought self-quarantine was the default “requirement” for entrants to the U.S., either formally or informally. These other countries are deeply fearful of us and the Europeans and all doing all they could to “flatten the curve” at their borders. With good reason, I fear. COVID-19 will reach them. As far as I can tell in my small sample, they are working on it at their borders and we are not, even though we are now second only to Europe as a growing danger.
I speak only from my own experience. Your results may vary, as will my own opinions after further study, since I am a believer in facts rather than the torrent of social media opinion. That being said, I’m an old man and grateful to be home and safe in my nest of 41 years in Boston. Be well, all.