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And I’m Back!

I just got back from my Tbilisi trip yesterday. I wasn’t expecting to disappear like this, I figured I’d lazy post while I was on vacation but I really needed to disconnect from work and my blog for at least a week and it felt great to do so. I continued to post on my instagram story since it gave me a reason to try and take some nice photos on my trip but other than that I really wanted to disappear.

I’m so glad to be back in Kuwait though. The whole Corona thing blew up while I was out and after the whole Iran outbreak thing I got freaked out. Not because I was afraid of getting the virus but afraid of being locked out of Kuwait. I read an article that said that they were stopping all flights from Iran and that Kuwaitis would be evacuated and quarantined on arrival while expats would be refused entry. So the whole trip I was worried Georgia would suddenly develop a mass Corona outbreak and I wouldn’t be allowed back into Kuwait and then where would I go?

For those of you out of Kuwait or for those of you wondering what the entry process at the airport is like right now, it’s pretty much similar to how it was a few weeks ago. As in there is a doctor with a thermal camera that scans every arriving visitor. Children and babies would have their temperature measured individually, I’m guessing because the thermal camera doesn’t work well on them? Whats really changed though is the mood of everyone. You can clearly tell everyone is now afraid of getting the virus from passengers to the passport control employees. A lot of people were wearing masks and my passport control lady even wore disposable gloves (which is probably more useful than masks).

When I got up to the passport control desk I was asked to place my finger on the fingerprint scanner and that’s probably the only time on my whole trip I got freaked out about getting the virus. I looked at the officer and was like do I really need to put my finger there? She said yeah so I put my finger on it and got it scanned. Thankfully once I was done she got her bottle of hand sanitizer and squirted it in my hands so I could disinfect it.

Anyway, I’m back now and catching up on stuff so I could start posting normally again starting Sunday. I noticed a lot of events have gotten postponed which is a smart thing to do for now. Some of the events that have gotten postponed include COMFEST, Redbull Car Park Drift and all the Kuwait Motor Town activities. I’m assuming things are gonna be pretty slow for the next two weeks or so…

28 replies on “And I’m Back!”

Hello its my first time commenting. But I am a silent reader from your blog. Welcome back to Kuwait. With whats going onhere now in Kuwait do you think it will come to a point that they will close down malls, restaurants, cafes and etc to prevent the spread? Because they already suspended school but its no use with class suspended I am seeing more people outside they are not scared.

I’m not an expert but if I was to guess as an average joe I don’t think it would get to that point. End of the day it’s not a highly fatal virus like Ebola or MERS so doubt they would shutdown the whole country for it. But again I’m not an expert.

I’m still trying to find masks. I held out from purchasing until Corona came to Kuwait and now I can’t seem to find any N95 ones. Anyone know where they still have them? All the pharmacies I’ve gone to are sold out!

From my understanding masks don’t really help unless someone infected basically spits or coughs right on your mouth. They’re great from stopping the virus from spreading if you have it, but seems to be a better idea to wear disposable gloves than to wear a mask if you aren’t infected. Maybe a doctor can chime in on this.

I was on a flight to Dubai where a child sitting directly behind me was coughing almost non-stop. I was wearing a mask throughout the flight, and I did not get sick. Besides, what would you do if some idiot just coughs in your direction and have nothing to protect yourself?

You didn’t get sick because the kid didn’t have corona. If you’re gonna wear a mask to protect your mouth then you should also wear goggles to protect your eyes and gloves so you don’t pick up the virus on your hands.

With the ministry saying that schools must close for employees and students, is it legal that the American Baccalaureate School in Khaitan is forcing employees to come to work still? And what should we do? They will fire us or withhold our pay if we don’t show up. As expats, we feel very uncomfortable contacting the ministry about this. If, god forbid, someone got something while travelling for national day, coming to work for the next two weeks is a quick way to ensure that it gets around to all the teachers, and all our students get it from us when they finally do come back!

I believe schools are closed for the students and not necessarily for the teachers. Teachers going to work in an empty school is like a normal employee going to the office. The idea is they don’t want larger groups in a closed space (students in a classroom) and since there are no students in school then you’re ok.

The first thing they want us to do is have an all-faculty meeting 🤦🏻‍♀️. And our principal says all staff must still use the fingerprint login. And I’m not sure of the Arab Times’ fact-checking, but it says that the head of the Center for Government Communication says “the suspension includes students and members of the teaching staff.” But maybe that’s just misinformation? I know there’s a lot of it going around.

https://www.arabtimesonline.com/news/coronavirus-cases-in-kuwait-up-to-26/

Hi, according to the announcement on the instagram page of the Ministry. Schools are to be closed for the next 2 weeks both government and PRIVATE schools, will be closed for students, teachers and administrative staff. I don’t think they can force you to go. Check out their Instagram they have also posted phone numbers in their posts for inquiries. Also it has been forbidden to use the finger print machines for safety. I have heard and read of a lot of private schools trying to make teachers come in. They are clearly violating ministry orders.

Does anyone know if 100% of these cases are based on that flight From Iran? If that’s the case, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. If not, I’m paranoid.

From what’s been reported, yes, it is from that flight, because now more than 40 cases have been reported.

So long as its a controlled outbreak, we have nothing to worry about, i.e. if the virus is contained within the 4 walls of the Al-Kout beach hotel. If this gets out in to the public, then may God have mercy on our souls.

The breakout in Iran, while unfortunate, was to be expected. its a third world country after all, riddled with international sactions. Which begs the question, can the virus actually be stopped? What with outbreaks in several countries that lack the basic infrastructure required to contain said outbreak.

There seem to be a lot of unanswered questions, like at what point would this particular strain of the coronavirus mutate? What kind of mutation would it be? Viruses are known to have ‘hive intelligence’ and sometimes are very highly adaptable to their environment. What would happen in the summer? Viruses usually thrive in high heat and humidity… Only time will tell.

The article doesn’t say anything about whether it’s going to last with the heat… and about this heat issue, we will only know it’s effect when the hot weather comes. Best case scenario is that it’ll considerably stop the spread, worst case scenario a slight slowing in the spread.

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