A week ago, I entered China through the Hangzhou airport on a flight from Singapore. I was on a long-awaited trip to Singapore to see my girlfriend, who have been strangled in the same place for more than an entire year since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Before I left for the trip I managed to get myself vaccinated. Although in China the COVID-19 is completely under control, the rest of the world is still struggling to tame the virus. I figured it would be wise to take on an additional layer of protection for the benefit of my girlfriend and myself.

The fact that I was vaccinated indeed offered a sense of security when I was in Singapore because I could largely ignore the tight mask rule and social distancing rule psychologically (I still complied physically.). However, it did not offer any convenience with regard to obeying the the government quarantine policy when crossing national boarders. I made a few attempts to make clear to the various personnel that I was vaccinated and produced the vaccination certificate given to me, however, I was still told that I needed to go through the 14-day mandatory quarantine in a hotel on my own expense.

The process at the boarder is efficient, but not necessarily fast. After the plane come to a full stop, the passengers needed to wait until the customs allowed the them to deplane. I waited maybe an hour before I could leave the plane, and I was told that was because the customs only allows the passengers from one plane to come into the medical test hall to avoid crowding of people, which makes sense. I walked off the staircases and entered the area for the swab test. In that area there are signs that says things along the lines that ‘welcome home, a strong mother-nation offers firm support for you’, which sounds assuring. I produced my documents and waited briefly before I entered a room to have the swab done. I tried to ask a doctor in a full isolation suit about whether it makes a difference that I’ve already vaccinated, the answer was no. She said something like vaccine does not provide 100% percent protection.

After the swab test, I came to an area where the customs staff checks the various test results that are required to enter the boarder. I made my second attempt and showed my vaccination certification to the lady. That made no difference. Apparently her job was just to categorize the passengers. The category I was assigned was literally translated as ‘asymptomatic, but still count as patient in an epidemiological sense’. This didn’t make sense to me after I read it. But it did make the sense that I was going to be quarantined after I was told so. The categories on that piece of paper only contained four, three of which I remembered as: patient, in close contact with patient, and the one I was assigned. None of them says OK you are allowed to go home.

Then there was the usual process of going through customs, claiming luggage and leaving the airport. Since we are going to be quarantined, we boarded a bus that was designated to take us to the hotel. After arrival at the hotel, a group of fully protected medical staff sprayed the outside of our bus, pulled all of our luggage out from the bus and sprayed them. All the passengers were asked to leave the bus and walk through a tent which was sprayed with disinfectant the air and finally assigned rooms to each one. All this is reminiscent of the movie series Resident Evil, which I don’t recommend because the plots suck in all of them, unless you really wanna see Milla Jovovich. I showed the vaccination certificate to the staff again, no difference.

The hotel room is a standard two-bed room. I was led to my room around midnight after all the procedure. I was tired and hungry because the flight didn’t offer much food. I couldn’t order food on our phones at that point of time because the food delivery to the hotel rooms is tightly scheduled and only occur at meal times. However, the quarantine staff was kind enough to give each of us a bowl of instant noodle, that saved the day.

Then there came the first day of the quarantine period. I woke up late and started to figure out the rules. The hotel room is priced at its usual rate, no intentional mark-up. Food delivery is scheduled. It’s okay to order stuff online and have them delivered to the hotel, however, the staff would only send the stuff to the rooms along with food. Meals are provided but need to be paid separately, the price is insane but the portion is big, more on that later. There is no way to wash clothes; I prepared plenty. There is a eye-catching bright yellow bio-hazard trash bin outside each quarantine room, where we are supposed to dump our trash. There is a nurse who comes twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, to take our body temperatures. There is pretty fast Internet connection. And on the last day, there will be another medical check.

As a computer guy this does not create too much trouble. However, I still called a few places to inquire about any policy about people who are already vaccinated. I ended the process after contacted the city-level office for disease control. The lady told me that the policy is still very conservative due to the fact that vaccine does not offer one hundred percent protection and there had been cases of re-infection after vaccination. I understand the need to cautious, in the end I still prefer some kind of option for self-declared tests to prove that I’m healthy. However, maybe this virus is so new that the professionals have not come up with some kind of tests that they are confident of being able to reliably detect any virus including all the variants. I decided to complete the 14-day quarantine.