Australians living under the coronavirus lockdown in mainland China are desperately short of basic protective gear including facemasks, gloves and hand sanitiser.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Yvonne Zhan, an English language tester working for the British Council in Guangzhou and Zhongshan, said she was caught in a bizarre Catch-22 situation.
"There are no face masks available from chemists or anywhere else. They all sold out around January 21," she said. "It is an offence not to wear one and has been that way for several days."
Ms Zhan (nee Forrest) said hand sanitiser and gloves were also unavailable. People were being forced to recycle single-use only masks at possible risk to themselves.
Zhongshan is a regional city of three million people just to the south of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province. Guangzhou (formerly Canton) lies just to to the north west of Hong Kong across the Zhujiang River Estuary. It has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus.
As of last Wednesday 272 people had been diagnosed with pneumonia as a result of the virus. They included two Australians who travelled to Wuhan for sightseeing. A Pakistani and two Hong Kong residents had also been affected.
Ms Zhan, whose family lives in Mandurah in Western Australia, grew up in Perth. Her son, who usually lives in Chengdu, is also an Australian citizen.
She told The Canberra Times pleas to DFAT through Smartraveller for assistance had apparently fallen on deaf ears.
"Aussies in China who do not have VPN number (virtual private network) can't register on the Smartraveller platform. When I finish putting my details in it looks like it is uploading but it never does."
Ms Zhan said she had been told she would not be allowed to return to her work at the British Council until next week (around February 9) at the earliest.
"How about DFAT in all the consulates handing some (facemasks) out to their nationals in need?" she said.
"We don't need to be airlifted out of here if we have access to the right preventative apparatus. (It would be) even better if they could throw in some hand sanitiser which is also sold out.
"The Guangzhou government (has said) it is going to start to make a limited amount (of face masks) available through a pre-ordering system at local pharmacies. They will be rationed... I imagine it will be swamped and demand will outstrip supply."
The scary thing over here are the knee jerk reactions to things which could possibly put in motion a series of unfortunate events
- Yvonne Zhan
Attempts to have masks sent from overseas are likely to fail given reports of packages being tampered with and masks and other supplies being stolen "by postal pixies".
A state of fear, bordering on panic in some places, is now widespread.
"The scary thing over here are the knee jerk reactions to things which could possibly put in motion a series of unfortunate events," Ms Zhan said.
"We have seen this with medical supplies. I also saw it with food when people thought there would be a lockdown. It is very hard to predict what might happen next. People are tense."
Law and order is already under threat in some areas.
"Vigilantes are forming at the borders of Hubei (the province in which Wuhan located) armed with knives to stop people from escaping.
"Pets are being rounded up and destroyed... in the belief they may harbour the virus. This hasn't happened in Guangdong yet but some pet owners say they have been harassed."
While Ms Zhan and her son feel safe for now they fear what might happen next with a spike in cases expected in the next 10 to 14 days.
