China Journal: My 4 Days in Quarantine
Upon Her Arrival in Beijing, CBS News' Asia Bureau Chief Marsha Cooke Discovers the Surreal World of Swine Flu Response:
My first-hand encounter with flu, fear and the limitations of life as a foreigner in China came at 8:45 pm on June 16. That's when an interminable flight from New York to Beijing, China came to an end, and a long strange chapter in a surreal Chinese quarantine hospital began.
There was little reason to suspect what was coming, when hazmat health teams boarded the plane and pointed mini-temperature guns at our foreheads. My initial reading was fine, but as I passed through the health check inside the airport I realized: Not so fast, Cookie . . .
I am asked to step aside; my temperature is scanned at 37.5. In the Celsius system, normal is 37. Suddenly I was a flag-waving, flu-carrying health threat. I am escorted to a holding pen. Eventually I am told, "You are going to a hospital. We are getting your luggage."
(CBS/Marsha Cooke)
There was little reason to suspect what was coming, when hazmat health teams boarded the plane and pointed mini-temperature guns at our foreheads. My initial reading was fine, but as I passed through the health check inside the airport I realized: Not so fast, Cookie . . .
I am asked to step aside; my temperature is scanned at 37.5. In the Celsius system, normal is 37. Suddenly I was a flag-waving, flu-carrying health threat. I am escorted to a holding pen. Eventually I am told, "You are going to a hospital. We are getting your luggage."
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