Here’s How I’m Spending COVID-19 Quarantine in South Korea
No, it is not a totalitarian nightmare
I spent my first hours in Korea in a testing center because my temperature was 37.5°C (99.5°F), a hair above the cutoff of 37.3 (99.1°F).
That was after I was tested 37.8°C at the temperature screening station — right before immigration — and 37.6°C at the testing intake center next to it.
“Must be because of my beanie,” I explained. I had also been wearing the jacket I bought to fight off polar vortexes in Chicago. I had rushed off the plane to get home as soon as possible.
After giving me five minutes to cool down, the employee who had tested me rushed over. “You shouldn’t have your earphones in. That can prevent your temperature from going down.”
I had been meditating to calm myself.
I measured at 37.5°C. She informed me I’d be transported to a testing facility.
“You can go home after you test negative.”
“How long will that take?”
She looked down and tilted her head to one side. “Probably after midnight?”
I crossed the hall to part two of the makeshift intake center. I stared longingly at immigration, literally yards away, baggage claim down the stairs just yards beyond that.
After making sure we filled out our forms, downloaded the mandatory Self-Quarantine Monitoring app, and had a chance to call loved ones (“There’s no cellphone reception where you’re headed.”), employees shepherded us through immigration, baggage claim, and onto the bus that would take us to the testing facility. I was in a group of 10 people, 3 of whom were other English-speakers like me, 1 of whom didn’t speak Korean at all. The mood was a mix of disgruntlement, good-natured laughter, solemnity, and, remarkably, from the one guy who said he had been traveling 35 hours, zen.
It turns out the “testing facility” was a security facility with one poor soul running all the tests. We each got individual rooms with plastic-wrapped beds, a TV, a thermometer, and a bathroom with a shower. No towels, though. “We’re not a hotel,” employees explained apologetically.
“Okay, at least there’s a bed,” I thought. I wiped everything I could with the antibacterial wipes I had brought. “At least I get to watch TV.”
I had to measure my temperature again as soon as airport security closed my door, then call down to the front desk to report the results. I measured at 37.1°C in one ear and 37.2°C in another. (The plastic nub on the thermometer was switched out when security dropped me off.) The front desk took my call but rushed to say they would call me back. I found out later they never wrote my numbers down, and by the time they called back, I truthfully reported my temperature at the time, which was 37.5°C.
If I hadn’t been in such a rush to get to immigration at the airport if the front desk at the testing facility had managed to get my temperature the first time, could I have gone home sooner?
In a huge mental health victory to my anxiety-riddled self, I didn’t worry about it.
I slept, got both the nose and throat swab, slept, ate the dinner they provided (which was good, because of course — Korean hospitality), slept, and watched Korea beat Cuba at a baseball game. Throughout, I made solid headway on the special version of Haunting of Hill House that my brother got me for my birthday, with my wife’s help.
I was exhausted. I had barely slept on the plane, and with the sparse Wi-Fi I had, I was trying to keep my mom in the loop, while she was trying to keep me cool in the head (pun intended).
At 1 AM, 8 hours after landing, I was told I tested negative. Yay! Now I didn’t have to worry about getting tested at a testing facility near my home in the next 3 days, the way I would have if I had just gone straight home.
Back at the airport, I waited for a special quarantine taxi to take me home. We got a lovely dusting of snow while I was at the testing facility, so there weren’t any taxis heading to Seoul. (I’m not sure how taxis from further provinces had made it, but that’s the excuse I was told.) The taxi drivers already there offered to change their destination, but the coordinator said no. The rules must be strict.
At 2 AM, I got home and, still wearing my mask, said hello to my mother.
Of course, I panicked many times throughout the night. I almost cried. What if I had the virus? What if I’d spread it? Even if I didn’t have it what would happen to me over the next several hours and what if there’s no taxi at the end of it all and what if I caught the virus going to and from the testing center?
But despite all that, I was, throughout that experience, and am still incredibly proud of my mother country. This is how it should be done: stem off people at the source, treat them with empathy and professionalism, and keep the country safe.
Testing myself back at home, my temperature has reliably tested at 36.6°C (97.9°F).
I’ve just finished my first week of quarantine, with one more to go. During these 14 days, I’m not allowed to go outside my home, I must wear a mask outside my room at all times to ensure my family can move about freely without infecting anyone, and my mom and I even decided I shouldn’t pet our dog without gloves. (I have tried to shut him out to no avail. He has figured out how to open doors, and the lock has long since broken.) My mother and I pass things like food and empty trays through my door with a rolling cart she bought just for this purpose. I’ve been recording my temperature and any symptoms twice a day in the Self-Quarantine Monitoring App, and when I forget, a representative from my district calls my mother (since I don’t have a working phone number) to remind me to do so and inquire after my health.
A day after I landed, I was sent a goodie bag from my district. I wasn’t surprised at all by the items for my physical health (hand sanitizer, disinfectant spray, K94 masks, a temperature-measuring sticker that works the same way mood rings do). I even got separate waste bags; South Korean laws have long dictated all food waste, non-food waste, and recycling must be disposed of in government-issued bags, and to quarantiners, the government sent easily distinguishable bright orange bags to keep our potentially contaminated waste separate. All this was described on the pamphlet I got with the goodie bag describing all the rules of quarantine, including wearing a mask indoors when not in your quarantine room.
I was surprised at the goodies for my mental health: pamphlets on how to deal with the quarantine blues and a garden starter pack. The pamphlets reminded me and fellow quarantiners to focus on reliable sources (i.e. don’t go down the misinformation panic spiral), to stay in touch with family and friends virtually, and to stay physically active within our rooms with light exercise. The garden starter pack is a bag of fertilized soil with a pack of seeds. The idea is that the plant should bloom by the end of the quarantine period.
I followed the instructions: plant the seeds about one centimeter (half an inch) deep, pour a third a cup of water, and expose to sunlight.
As with many apartments in Seoul, ours has verandas. When my mother isn’t out on the veranda, I open my window to air the room out, as suggested by the government to expel any contaminated air, and, up until yesterday, give my plant some sun. I may have overwatered the plant when I watered it after five days, as instructed on the back of the bag, but before then, I did see peach fuzz. I’ve passed the bag outside to my mother to see if setting it by the floor-to-ceiling South-facing windows in the living room will dry it out.
I’m incredibly fortunate and privileged that my quarantine experience has been mildly uncomfortable at its worst and a welcome respite at its best. I’ve been reading, writing, working from home, and video-calling friends. I’ve made plans with friends here in Seoul and with my mom — most importantly, watching Wonder Woman in theaters, which is less risky than visiting a grocery store in America.
(For those who want to refute my numbers by saying South Korea is smaller than America: it is; that’s why I’ve quoted you percentages instead of amounts in those articles I linked. Zero infections have been tied to movie theaters in South Korea, where you must check into every place you visit using a government-issued QR code on your phone. That’s an infection rate of 0%, versus 20% of grocery workers alone in grocery stores in the US. That’s not to say all 20% of those workers caught the virus at work, but you’d have to believe 0% of them did — that every single one of them caught the virus elsewhere, came to work, and didn’t spread it to anyone else — to refute my point.)
I am proud to be an American. I can’t wait to go back and see my wife and brother.
I also know the real risk during this entire trip, to me and my loved ones, is the trip back: back to the country where too many people have decided common sense and decency is totalitarian oppression, where freedom means flouting science.
Quarantine is not a walk in the park but it is not a totalitarian nightmare. It is common-sense. It is science-backed. It is the safe, responsible thing to do. It is patriotic. You might cry authoritarianism. I say the truth: quarantine allows me the freedom to move about afterward in good conscience that I didn’t bring the virus with me from America — which boasts at least 50 times the case per capita and death per capita of South Korea— to my family and friends.
