Former Winnipegger living in China relieved quarantine is ending

She calls it her quarantine calendar. For nine days, Alycia Smith has taken a marker and drawn an X over the previous day inching a little closer to her house arrest ending.

Underneath the calendar, she has a mini whiteboard with a positivity note: "If you stay positive in a negative situation you win."

The note seems to have worked. Smith talked to CBC over FaceTime Saturday night and was expecting to be in quarantine for another four days but just after midnight Sunday she learned she would finally be able to leave her apartment — with a mask and special pass.

Smith, 30, has been living in China for four and a half years working as a teacher first in Beijing and now in Nanjing.

She had gone to Thailand in January for a vacation and while in the country started hearing about the coronavirus. Her family and mom back in Winnipeg wanted her to come home.

"It was definitely not my favourite vacation because I spent half the time stressed out about trying to decide what to do."

Some of her colleagues returned home to Canada but she went back to China. When she arrived at her apartment last Friday, a medical crew showed up to take her temperature and gather her flight information.

Everything was fine until the next morning when five or six people in masks showed up at her door. Only one woman in the group spoke a tiny bit of broken English.

"She showed me this pink paper and showed me the dates on it and said that you need to stay in your home till this date — February 20th."

Smith tried to take her mandated quarantine in stride. She did yoga and used her treadmill and wasn't angry she couldn't leave. She said everyone in her building was put under quarantine.

"From my point of view as someone who's been stuck inside, I totally understand why different communities within every city have different policies and my community has very strict policies. Basically, if you have left Nanjing or are coming back in [there is a two-week quarantine], so I get it. I'm also the safest by being just at home obviously."

Smith, who grew up in Winnipeg's St. James neighbourhood, says Nanjing is a changed city.

"It's very dead. Over half the businesses are closed for the time being. Only people who have to work are working. If they can work from home, they're working from home."

"If I usually walk outside there's 50 people around me, especially in the morning. It's chaos. So now to go outside and there'll be like three people walking around — it's like post-apocalyptic. It's very ghostly."

She said she's had no symptoms of the coronavirus.

Canada's chief public health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Canadians abroad who are in quarantine should call Global Affairs Canada for help.