禁漫天堂

hie
how much do you pay for the quarantine

About $100 per person/day

Welcome to Mauritius, a tropical paradise.

Silvan0 wrote:

Diary of an expat doing quarantine in Mauritius

Arrival

The plane landed on time, at 11 AM. We did our immigration formalities as usual and were out of the airport at 11:40. They gave us a blue or red envelope with all the information about the quarantine and gathered us on a couple of buses, one blue, one red, to match our envelope. Each bus was destined to a different hotel.

We sat inside our blue bus, parked in the sun, for over an hour while men
wearing full bacterial hazard body suits moved around agitated. Nobody would tell us what was going on. Finally the bus left at 12:50 and took us, under police escort, to our hotel, where we arrived one hour and 15 minutes later. The bus driver had several attempts at driving the bus inside the yard, but they all failed because the bus was too big to fit in easily. Finally he desisted and they let the vans carrying our luggage in the yard instead. Parked outside the gate for an eternity, we asked the police to let us walk into the hotel from the road, which was about 30 metres. They said that they couldn鈥檛 because the Ministry of Health directives want them to drop us inside the hotel yard. Some passengers were fighting desperate physiological urges. One woman shouted that she could faint if she could not get to the restrooms soon. Nope. The Ministry of Health forbids.

So we had to wait another hour and half waiting for the bus driver to do miracles and squash his bus in through the gate with the added complication of avoiding the piles of suitcases scattered in the yard. When he finally managed, it was 3:30pm. We had spent some 3 and a half hours sitting with 50 other passengers in a poorly ventilated old bus. By the end most passengers had removed their masks because of the heat and lack of air. An ideal situation for contagion. If we do develop the disease in the coming days we have the Ministry of Health to thank.

The holiday deal

Once freed of the contagion trap, we made our way to be tested, interviewed and assigned a room. The hotel is closed and run by a bunch young people hired by the Ministry of Health. Obviously none of them has any previous experience in running a hotel. After waiting another couple of hours because of problems finding us a room, we finally get one. It is a bungalow facing the ocean, across a very busy and noisy coastal road. The men in virus-combat uniform explain to us that we cannot leave the room, we must clean it ourselves and we will be taken the temperature twice a day and will be tested 3 times during the 2 weeks. If we break the rules we will be punished with one or more weeks of 鈥渉olidays鈥�. This fabulous deal will cost us a mere 鈧�100 per person per day. We get to our room. It is 5:30pm. No soap, no shower gel, no bin-liners, not even the promised sanitizing and cleaning kit. 鈥淚t will come, be patient鈥� says the voice on the phone when I call for the 3rd time. There is no kitchen, not even a table and chairs. The food comes in paper bags and we try to eat it sitting on the floor, but it鈥檚 cold and there is no way to reheat it. Overcooked white spaghetti with no sauce on and some mince meat with tomatoes, also cold of course, which I鈥檓 sure even my dog would refuse. Plenty of sugar and white bread though, 鈥淪un Top鈥� juice boxes and a very sweet inedible dessert. A wonderful healthy balanced meal indeed, which I only paid 鈧�100 for and for which, once more, I must remember to thank the Ministry of Health. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: no alcohol and no food from outside, not even fruits from a friend. Can someone tell me? Am I in a hospital? A prison?

And what鈥檚 it all for?

The media are blasting alarming warnings that Covid-19 infections are going through the roof in Europe. And that鈥檚 true. France and Spain are having over 8000 new infections per day, beating their record during the 鈥渉ot鈥� period of the pandemic. Italy and the UK show an average of 1500, Greece 200 and so on. Scary numbers, one may think. But there are two major differences with last March: testing and deaths.
Testing was stepped up enormously by European countries, in fact, the new tests curve steps up in parallel to the new cases. That means that a lot of these new found cases are asymptomatic and were already there before. We just know about them now.
What confirms this is the fact that the deaths have not increased. Having 7000 new infections but only 5 deaths confirms the hypothesis of some eminent doctors, that the European strand of the virus has mutated. The swabs show an infinitesimal viral load compared to the one that put the World on its knees and has lost the gene that kills. Covid-19 has become a strong but ordinary flue.

So what are we being locked up for?

I think that people should be able to differentiate test cases and death case and for as long as the death cases are low it shows that we can live through it all with the right medical treatment

Tecsla Inc.LLC wrote:

I think that people should be able to differentiate test cases and death case and for as long as the death cases are low it shows that we can live through it all with the right medical treatment

Which right medical treatment?
It is either you quarantine yourself once you have been exposed to Covid聽 to see if you will become sick聽 聽- that is what is happening in MOST countries or else you are in an ICU where the treatment is either Oxygen provision to help you breathe or worst case scenario intubation ( hopefully done the right way) should you become sick based on the current COVID symptoms.
In Mauritius , +ve patients were sent to Souillac and now ENT just to isolate those patients either from where they were being quarantined ( those coming back to Mauritius) or from their home away from their family or families who are NOT sick from Covid.

Exactly. In Europe they ask you to stay at home if you feel symptoms, isolate in a room if you live with others, and inform your doctor. They will come test you but you only go to hospital if you are seriously sick. This is because the hospitals were full, with ICU units overflowing and they needed the beds for those who are in danger of death.
Today the cases are going up and in some countries (France, Spain) they are even higher than the crazy period but鈥� no deaths. The death rate is 0-20 across most of Europe. It means only one thing: the virus is losing strength.
The summer sun and climate knocked it out and it lost its viral load. So the Covid-19 is becoming a common cold.
Some laboratories in Italy are working to create a vaccine using the weakened virus. If you catch the Covid today in Italy or France and you are healthy, your chances of dying are less than being killed by lightning.

Thanks for the overview of your return Silvan0. It makes for depressing reading. Hopefully the time passes quickly for you and your family and you can get back to some sort of normality.

Can I ask did you transit through another country like Dubai and what were your experiences like there and/ or your starting airport? Also on the airline itself?

@Wandlewed I Was in Italy and transited via Paris to get back on a direct Air Mauritius flight.
Life in Europe is as normal. There is the virus but people don't care much for it because nearly nobody is diving. It's become a strong but ordinary flu.
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Thanks for the update Silvan0 and glad you finally made it back to Mauritius.
What on earth was that聽 with the Hazmat suits??聽

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Vedan this is the second case of food poisoning at a quarantine centre in the past week - there was an outbreak at Long Beach Hotel a week ago reported in the local press.

How are things now?

There is a FB group on Quarantine.
People seem to be having different experiences, some positive but I would say mostly negative.

Thank you!

We're finally out and鈥� never again!

I'm glad you all are out.聽 Working on our relocation trip there

Welcome home. X+

Thanx to all for your support and welcomes. Our dogs could hardly recognize us after 7 months stranded away.