My country’s extremely relaxed and ludicrous approach to dealing with the COVID-19 crisis could easily be something out one of Gabriel García Marquez magical realism tales.

Our borders, markets, public schools and universities remain open and there aren’t any rules to enforce social distancing. But it doesn’t stop there. The government continues to promote public gatherings and even sponsored a large-scale political rally through the capital called “Love in Times of Covid-19”.

To date, we have 9 confirmed cases, one death and a vanished President. There is widespread mistrust about the veracity of these figures and the government’s ability to contain the virus.

Those like my family and I who can afford to self-quarantine and work from home are staying inside. Yet, in a country where almost 80 percent of the population participate in the informal economy, literally surviving hand-to-mouth, self-isolation is a privilege that only few can enjoy.

The impact of the pandemic is compounding with our fragile economy and years of political instability. It’s hard to predict what will come next, but I’d like to be hopeful and think this crisis will bring us the possibility to radically reimagining and fighting for a new and better Nicaragua.

At first, the news related to the coronavirus seemed to give us an impression that the problem was ‘far away’ in Asia, and wouldn’t affect us, halfway across the globe. However, it soon became part of our local news and affected and changed our lives completely. I live in the biggest and most populated city in the country, and I am completely used to the crowds, the noise, the traffic jam in rush hours. All of that is gone – I can hear birds singing during the day and see the stars in the sky at night, since the pollution levels decreased significantly. That is truly special!

Adapting myself to the work-from-home scheme was not difficult, as it was something my firm already had established, but the quarantine is taking its toll as regards sociability: I miss meeting my friends and going out, as well as going to the gym (which is something I used to do every single day). But there is always a bright side, and now I am finally taking advantage of the streaming signature plans I’ve always paid and barely used, and I managed to finally force myself to sleep at least 7 hours per day.

When we heard the news about the new coronavirus in China we never expected the virus is going to reach our country, but at the beginning of march we got the bad new after the first 3 cases were confirmed.

Then since March 12th we are under lockdown, everything have changed. In my case as a teacher I am working from home, even we are having contact with the kids, I really miss my students. I am trying to read new books, to make some new things, but my big desire is that this situation ends soon. I want to see my friends again, to walk around, hug and kiss again.

In my country the real threat is not the coronavirus, being one of the poorest countries in our continent, the hardest thing now is how a great percent of people survive to the economic crisis provoqued after the confinement declaration. So the hunger is visiting many homes of people that lives day by day.

These days at home made me reflect on how our lifestyle is affecting our world, maybe the earth really needs this quarantine to heal from the great damage that we provoque with our pollution footprint.

Early in January, I read about Corona in China. I informed my mother, who was in Tianjin, China, at the time. She laughed at the idea of wearing masks and using hand sanitizer.

January 23 was the Chinese New Year. The TV signal in Tianjin was interrupted. A cozy entertainment program changed abruptly to a live broadcast from Wuhan. Long queues in front of the hospitals. People covered their loved ones in blankets and waited in the cold wind. Many died while waiting.

The following day, the strict quarantine rules came into force. Everything was closed. Everyone was in a panic. You had to have a permit to go shopping. All symptoms were considered alarming. All other diseases had to wait. Everybody feared being infected. Many committed suicide because they were afraid of infecting their families. My mother has been under great stress and has had suicidal thoughts several times.

So finally, on February 21, I got my mother to Denmark. She was shocked when she landed in Copenhagen Airport. No control. No one was watching her even though she came from China. She voluntarily quarantined herself. She was incredibly upset and asked me to warn the authorities that it is dangerous letting the passengers move around without restrictions. However, my boyfriend and I did nothing.

Now, she is still stressed and depressed. She almost felt like it was her fault, that Corona has spread in Denmark, because she did not warn us.

Tianjin, where she comes from, has nearly 14 million inhabitants. There have been around 200 infected. And the control is very strict, almost inhuman. In Denmark, we have a population of 5 million people, and there are more than 5,000 infected, and many Danes do not take it seriously. My mother’s family calls her every day, trying to persuade her to go to China. But the plane tickets are extremely expensive now. And you have to pay for quarantine yourself when you arrive in China. If you are infected, you also have to pay for treatment. And in fact, I do not think China is safer than Denmark.

I have been in quarantine with my mother for the last month. And I’m going to work next week, as a shop assistant. It gives my mother even more worries. But life must go on.

I take good care of my mother and try to be as positive as I can. We have to win. We simply have to face these difficult times.

At Utterslev Mose the geese fly like large aircraft above the trees, they land and eat dandelions in the grass, I sit with my thermos of tea and stare at the world, stare at the families who light fires, stare in my loneliness till the words fall out my pockets, have a nice day I tell someone passing. The day I sit there is World Poetry Day, I stroll on towards the cemetery of Bispebjerg, where the cherry trees are in bloom. The sun stands like a mask above the flowers. A man sneezes in front of the chapel, and a soughing goes through the people, not through the trees, for the cherry grove is closed to the public, no one should sneeze in the fragrant air; a woman speaks in a whisper to someone at a grave.

Today, words are celebrated, now is the time when words have the power, a single word triumphs, but here is a prayer, here is my speech, my thought, my word for the little crocus, because no one should triumph over a bed of crocus, they grow so low in the light, but yet stubbornly upwards. No one can defeat a flood of light that triumphs against the night, so I walk through the gate of the morning and get euphorically poisoned, the morning belongs to itself, I regret, the light is not a mask, the light is an antenna to a new melody, a silence behind the eyelids.

Mauritius has been on lockdown for just under 4 weeks now (during that time there were 8 days of curfew where shops were closed and movement was completely restricted). Grocery shopping now takes place in alphabetical order of people’s surnames (A-F Monday/Thursday, G-N Tuesday/Friday, O-Z Wednesday/Saturday), with ID and temperature checks before entering the shops. Police road blocks have been set up to check if people are part of essential services that are allowed to circulate on the roads.

I am able to work as a house-call vet, but my work is limited to solely emergencies, taking as many precautions as possible – PPE, 1 owner present at an appropriate distance, and only a handful of cases every day. Everything else I do via remote consultation, charging a nominal fee for my time, advice and/or prescriptions. I am acutely aware of the situation and potential for the virus to spread, I have to try to ensure that I do not inadvertently carry the virus from client to client. My family and friends thankfully are safe and healthy, avoiding going out unless absolutely necessary, however, some of the population even now does not practice appropriate social distancing.

I am a British national married to a Dane, I currently live and work in Hanoi but our base home is in PranBuri which is a rural area twenty minutes from Hua Hin, Thailand.

First let me begin with the situation in Hanoi:

I left Hanoi on the 15th of March to come home to Thailand for my annual leave of fourteen days, I left a few weeks earlier than planned because I feared that Thailand may close it’s borders and I would not be able to enter to see my wife Cristina.

I did that because I was supposed to fly to the Philippines on March 23rd to visit my three children and my Granddaughter in the Philippines but unfortunately the country went into lock down stopping all flights in and out and therefore my trip was cancelled, so I did not want the same to happen to my trip to Thailand hence leaving earlier than planned.

When I left Hanoi there was no lock down as such however there were already about 30+ known cases of the virus 50km outside of the City and 2 or 3 in the city itself which had a knock on effect on City, streets were being completely sanitized and our work place which is the Hanoi Metro construction project had to implement strict controls before entering including weekly sanitizing of the offices and grounds, daily checks of all workers and visitors and that everyone was wearing masks.

I work for an Italian / Korean Joint Venture so no one from either of those countries was permitted to enter the country or join our project.

All shops, bars, cafe, restaurants were still open at that time but almost everyone was wearing protective face masks, except for foreigners who seem to think it was not necessary, this caused some resentment between Vietnamese and Foreigners.

In most large shopping malls and grocery stores there were controls at the entrances, checking for temperature and that masks were being worn.

I have a dog in Hanoi and the park where I walk her and usually join a lot of dog owners both Vietnamese and Ex Pat saw less and less people coming out to walk their dogs, it went from around 30 people meeting up every day to maybe four or five.

The streets and roads were not showing any signs of the crisis at that time, although their was still a lot of motorbike traffic and cars on the roads there was a decrease in traffic but not so significant.

Leaving Hanoi was pretty straight forward, the usual customs and immigration controls, however the airport was much quieter than usual.

Thailand:

When I arrived in Bangkok I was not subjected to any health screening and was straight through immigration in less than five minutes which was the quickest I have experienced in the five years I’ve been travelling in and out of Thailand.

During the first week of my stay in Thailand there was no evidence of mitigation or controlling the spread of the virus and almost no one was wearing masks, except for me and my wife, so the the roles were reversed, now people looked at you for wearing a mask, not like in Hanoi where it was the opposite.

The day I entered Thailand there were 113 reported COVID-19 cases in the country which at the time was not too bad considering the population is around 100 Million.

The second week the numbers increased to over 300 and then by the end of the second week that had increased to over 1000, this is when we started to notice the change in the attitude of the Thai Government and people, now people were starting to wear masks and controls and shops and malls were being implemented.

Only essential items could be purchased in malls and supermarkets and social distancing was encouraged. It was announced that Bangkok would go into lock down, when that was announced thousands of Bangkok residents left the city to return to their home provinces or holiday homes scattered around Thailand.

We do now see a change in the attitudes and it appears that Thailand is starting to increase its controls and counter measures to reduce further spreading of the Virus.

As for Hanoi, that has now gone into complete lock down, bars, restaurants, cafes, shops, malls and most Supermarkets are closed, police checks are increasing to ensure that people are complying to the Governments instructions and it appears to be controlling the situation better than many.

However this also meant that they stopped all in bound International flights from countries with known Virus cases including Thailand, so I was supposed to return to Hanoi on the 29th March but could not and I am not sure when I can now return.

Coronavirus has changed and continues changing a lot of things. First we were angry that it ruined our plans, now we are afraid that it’s going to affect our economics and daily life even after the crisis.

The situation in Moscow is frustrating. The number of victims is only increasing meanwhile some citizens don`t take it seriously and don’t remain in quarantine. Luckily, the government is preparing stricter measures and I hope these measures will work. If we talk about life in general, many people have lost their jobs, small and medium sized businesses suffer the most...

What concerns me, I am lucky. The company, where I work, gave all employees the opportunity to do their duties remotely and save their salary. Of course, working from home is not the same and in the beginning it was difficult to get used to it. Of course, I miss my family and friends, strolls in the centre of Moscow, tea in my favourite bookshop near Patriarch ponds, noisy parties in Dom Kultur and all other aspects of my usual life. Despite that, I try to see bright colours in the current situation. I believe now we have a unique time to learn something new, to find a hobby, to clear our thoughts and finally start appreciating things which were natural for us before.

When all this is over, imagine how happy we will be?

I’m a Danish citizen living in New Zealand with my partner, who is Kiwi.

On one hand, life hasn’t changed much despite lockdown and pandemic. We both have been working from our home office since January. We rarely ever visit the mainland. We only go shopping once a week anyway.

On the other hand, everything is turned upside down. Soon, the last airplane will take off from Auckland, and I will be stuck in New Zealand. I won’t be able to get home, even if anything serious would happen to any of my family members back in Denmark. I don’t know if I can even afford a ticket home once the airlines start operating again.

But I decided to stay. It’s the only way I’m able to stay together with my partner. He can’t come with me to Denmark because of the lockdown, and if I leave, I won’t be permitted entrance to New Zealand again.

I really miss my friends and family, and I am worried I won’t see them for a very long time.

It was a tough, scary decision to stay. But I think it was the right one. We both do.

This pandemic is the new terrorist for us in Lombok, Indonesia. In 2018 our island was hit by a strong earthquake. We have a beautiful island, its’ beauty attracts a lot of tourists. Most of us depend on tourism and many of us lost our job and income. It took quite a long time to get the tourist back to Lombok after the earthquake.

We just healed during 2019, and now this pandemic locked us down again. The situation is getting worse. My whole family lives of tourism, and it has been nearly a month without income and we cant do anything to help it. For now my parents, my 5 adult siblings and I are living together at the same place. We stay in isolation together. It’s too scary for us outside. Our village has been put into red zone by the government since we have some positive cases around.

I have spent a lot of my income to build small bungalows in my homestay, “Aranka Tempasan” to be able to employ my family as well. Now my bungalows are empty and we have had no guests for 40 days. Since we get our income from tourism, we do not have a big field to grow vegetables as other people in our community that normally lives as farmers have. We realized that our savings were getting empty so we have now made a small field behind one of my bungalows to grow some vegetables for my family to survive. It will take at least three months for our vegetables to get ready. So for now we have some kilos of rice until the vegetables are ready and until this crisis is over. We try to minimize our consumption of rice each day to make it last as long as possible. This tragedy is going to take a while, so we do team work in my family to support our lives.

We pray that this terror will soon be gone. We are not strong enough to face this hard situation for a long time. But we have no choice. We will stay strong and deal with it.

I am Danish but live and work in Geneva, Switzerland, where I am spokesperson at the United Nations’s office for emergency aid coordination.

Due to the nature of the job, I have grown familiar with working in emergencies.

Finding oneself in crises that directly threaten people’s lives is always scary, overwhelming and initially chaotic. The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, peaks of violence in Congo or Kenya, revolutions and wars in the Middle East - when you get caught up in that, the perception of daily life starts to change. Little things sometimes matter as much as the big ones: can I get a phone signal to send a text to my family vs. which roads are the less likely to be contaminated with mines?

COVID-19 is both familiar and completely different. Invisible, largely unpredictable, truly global and with few precedents. This is the big one.

Normally my direct interaction with people multiplies when disasters happen: missions, briefings, talking to affected people, and meeting as many news reporters as I can. These days I am confined at home but the working hours are as long as always.

I was lucky being in Switzerland when the planes stopped flying and the stay-home orders were given. Many of my colleagues are stranded.

Switzerland has been hit hard and the curve shot up in the span of a few days. Everything is closed except food markets and pharmacies. My message when I brief the press is that the humanitarian lifeline to millions of people in need of food and medicines around the world should also remain open and well-resourced. I hope you agree.

The photo shows how I brief the press from UN Headquarters in Geneva: in an empty room in front of remote controlled cameras with the reporters online.

Every time anyone thinks about “home”, several ideas come to mind. Family, friends, culture,... it is a space each of us know, where everyone feels safer than in any other place. Nonetheless, this statement is not always 100% true.

Currently, I am living in Aarhus, as part of my Erasmus program. Of course, I keep an eye on everything is happening in Spain, my home country. I keep in touch with my family, my friends, etc. and from their experiences, I try to think about how would be spending there this outbreak.

It might sound really contradictory, but I feel safer here in Denmark than in my home country. I find myself more protected in a country I have never been before, coliving with a language in which I am not able to ask for a coffee, in a society that, culturally, barely makes with mine.

It could be the huge number of Spanish news about Coronavirus every day, the collapse of hospitals, the rise of the infections and deaths, some objections about how Spanish government is dealing with COVID-19,etc. It could be the combination of all of them. The only thing I know is that right now, I prefer to say “god morgen” than “buenos días” to my doctor.

I am forced to be inside. If I leave, I have to bring a note with me with details about my name, my place of birth, my address and my purpose for being outside. Identity. Out there. Outdoors. Out-of-doors. Once, but now the borders are closed to our neighbours in Europa as we knew it. »We are at war,« Macron said six times in his address to the nation. Not at war with them, but with it – a virus – which can settle in all of us. All around the world. With a desire for conquest greater than that of Napoleon. Invisible until we react with symptoms like those in combat. Symptoms that make us anxious. For we are the enemy, we carry it, but we also carry each other onwards, we carry the peace.

One hour is all I have – and just one kilometre reserved for running. I have several options at my intersection that I choose based on whether I am heading out to shop, going to the pharmacy or take the dog for a walk – or myself for a walk IN MY OWN COMPANY. Any failure to abide by these rules will be costly! Some have to continue to go to work. Not in my case since all museums are closed. We are now doing our part – from home – to brighten things up with the arts on social media. The arts that we need if we are to avoid losing heart in the middle of a crisis!

Isolated ’just in case’. We have nothing under control, we can merely wait and hope. Because we don’t know. Alone. Cut off from our loved ones. Our entire existence in the hands of the governments of the world and their health sectors. Masks, rubber gloves, hand sanitizer, all items that used to belong to hospitals, have become an important part of our every life. Checkout men and women have become our heroes along with our doctors. They are all doing their part to keep us alive. Every night at eight o’clock, cheers and hoots are coming from wide-open windows. We celebrate them, as they sit barricaded behind their plastic windows. Some wear a sort of face shield. “We are at war. The words linger in the air as if some now are too afraid to breathe. Afraid to ’share’, more like it – indicated in eyes full of fear. Are they afraid for their own sake or for others’ sake?

And life on the street. Not the life that has suddenly ground to a halt. I think about the life led by those not seen by many in our everyday life as we knew it. Because it hurts too much or ’merely’ offends the eye as a dark smudge on a brand-new iPhone lens. The life which sometimes demands that you look down when they are asleep on cardboard, rolled up in blankets like butterfly pupae, waiting for their wings. Wings in the shape of coins which they exchange for whatever makes them fly. I think about those of you whom people would never dream of shaking hands with, since the hand to be shook is ’dirty’. I think about those of you whom the police cannot even send home when you have moved too far away from your neighbourhoods. I think about you and I look forward to seeing you again!

The air smells different – free of people. If we are lucky, we can breathe the free air again when ’the war’ is over. And I hope we breathe differently. With more consideration and gratitude. I hope that all this indoor free time, granted forcibly, makes us consider how we spend our time. Together and on the social media currently ’saving us’ from complete solitude. I hope that we – when are given the choice – choose to unplug and actually be present when we are together. And that we aren’t afraid of hands, hugs and kisses.

I am imprisoned here with myself and do everything in my power to remain in the present. Not that ’the present’ at present is all that pleasant, but when I think about the two months that we might have to stay isolated indoors, my throat begins to clog up. And I cannot complain, for goodness’ sake!!! I am healthy and I am home.

I am looking forward to being absolutely free again. I am looking forward to being able to sprint without having police officers on my heels which I dig in because I am too far away from my own address. I long for open arms, open borders, open spaces: seeing the forest and smelling the ocean. We are discovering how ’it’ is far bigger than us. I hope more than anything that we can learn to put things in perspective in a serious way – because it is serious! And that we can say: The same goes for nature. Nature which is us – which we nonetheless continue to destroy as if we have yet to fully comprehend it despite the visible signs of fever on a melting globe that can no longer breathe among all of us and all that is ours. Perhaps nature has had enough and decided to a bit of spring cleaning with a dash of covid-19? We cannot blame it, should that be the case.

A world where we, as we are now in a pandemic crisis, continue to do our best to make the world a better place. A society where we are less preoccupied with how we look and more concerned about helping one another. Where we are more concerned about doing our best to be understood and to understand each other than to attack each other. A society where we comprehend the value of communicating and building knowledge together. Particularly in terms of being there to support our children and young people, our next generation.

I already see a society that has seen a huge improvement of their digital skills. A society that can save the environment and adjust our efforts in different ways in order to use them more efficiently.

I want a society where some of the community spirit, which has been awoken inside us, lives on. For us to stand together. Well aware that we are all in the same boat in each of our small or large homes. Where we serialize that it will always be the weakest who are the worst affected, both nationally and globally. That we are vulnerable locally if we fail to think big.

Three words came to my mind when trying to encapsulate life in Covid19 times.

Border. Epidemics travel across borders. So do human beings. On the 1. of March 1920 a seven year old girl (my grandmother Elisabeth) entered Franz-Jozefs-Bahnhof in Vienna. Elisabeth having survived the Spanish disease was send away by her mother to keep her alive. The plan was to stay with a Danish family for three months, but she stayed forever. Adopted on the conditions of going to a catholic school and visiting Vienna every summer.

Unite. Global epidemics call for global solutions uniting different points of views. In 1920 that probably saved the life of my grandmother. She lived in her flat at Frederiksberg for more than 90 years, keeping her heart in Vienna as well. Joyful whenever the radio would broadcast Strauss music or transmit the annual New Year’s concert. That would brighten up even a cloudy day.

Life. Epidemics challenge lives. My grandmother crossed borders, united different cultures and stayed very much alive for 97 years.