The United States has become the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak surpassing the likes of Italy and China. The healthcare system, the government and the people of the US have struggled to meet the challenges of the disease.
Expats living in the United States face similar struggles and Thais are no different.
We caught up with a few living in New York, New Jersey and California — the site of the worst outbreaks — to see how they were doing and coping with the outbreak.
New York
Kritrasa ‘Goon’ Chaicharoen had just finished graduate school and was living in Brooklyn, New York when the coronavirus outbreak began.
Ever since the lockdown, Goon spends, like most of us, the majority of her time indoors — playing and listening to music, watching TV, and hanging out with her roommates, anything to keep herself busy and positive. She gets a lot of her updates from ชมรมคนไทยในนิวยอร์ก (Thais living in New York club), a Facebook group where Thais living in New York share tips, updates, and warnings to one another about current affairs and the outbreak happening in the city.
Grocery stores and laundromats are now the only places left open, where Goon takes weekly trips there to stock up on food and do her laundry.
“My day-to-days are kind of sad” she laughed, “The weather is so nice out now. Spring is here but I can’t even go outside to enjoy it. All I can do is stare out the window.”
Staying inside is obviously better and safer than leaving — but to her, that may have less to do with the virus now.
“Another worrying reason that is stopping me from going anywhere is crime.” Goon explained, “People are so affected by the outbreak, they’re losing their jobs and income, and everyone is getting desperate.”
Theft in New York City has surged in the past month. This news came after officials in states across the country proceeded to close restaurants, bars, hotels, cinemas, gyms, and venues in a bid to stop the spread of the virus.
Last week, nearly 3.3 million people registered to claim jobless benefits in the United States, a historical high and new record eclipsing the previous record of 695,000 claims back in 1982.
Goon recalls reading about one of the cases on Facebook where “a friend of a friend of mine was robbed by four criminals in broad daylight.” she said, “They robbed her of food! People who have been stripped of income can’t even afford to buy and stock up on even food now.”
“Ever since I heard [of the news], I haven’t left the house without one of my roommates. I used to feel safe going outside alone, but not anymore under these circumstances.”
“Everytime I have go out, I not only wear face masks and gloves — I wear safety glasses too!” Goon laughed, “I need to wear a cap and tie my hair as well. I don’t want it [the virus] to get stuck on my hair.”
New York and New Jersey
Panthita ‘Kiwi’ Savangwongsakul and Napat ‘Sai’ Rodboon are two friends who met and work in Manhattan. Kiwi is a social media manager for Marchesa who commutes to NYC from New Jersey while Sai is a dance instructor who lives on the Upper West Side.
“I just packed my bags and decided to stay with Kiwi.” Sai said, “I have been following the news really closely and figured that things were going to get really, really bad [in New York]. Two days later, everything in New York got shut down.”
Despite being a hard-hit city as well, New Jersey still is a lot less populated and calmer.
“We aren’t that stressed because we are outside of the city” Kiwi noted.
People in New Jersey are still allowed to take uber rides, and both friends feel much safer using the ride-sharing app rather than taking the subway in New York.
The rapid spread of coronavirus in New York wasn’t “a matter of if, but when”, Sai said, “everyone knew it was going to spread really fast.”
Despite it being calmer, they’re still taking precautions very seriously. When they leave for groceries — which is once a week — to store up on food, Kiwi and Sai have to prepare by wearing face masks, bringing hand sanitizers, tying their hair up, and doing their best not to touch anything.
But two weeks ago, the grocery stores started running out of essentials — from toilet paper to pasta and ramen — That week after, it went really crazy.” they recalled.
Roommates for the foreseeable future, Kiwi and Sai now spend their days binge-watching K-series, doing Tiktok dances, and playing with Kiwi’s pitbull, Gummy.
Company helps and “having a dog really helps as well” Kiwi laughs.
California
Being the state with the third-highest number of cases in the country, California has the benefit of learning from New York and early hit states like Washington.
Pimnipa ‘Pim’ Kangsanan and Karn ‘Blue’ Piluntanadilok were both working in San Francisco when the outbreak started. Pim was working as a design consultant for an e-learning firm called Mosaic and lives in the suburbs, while Blue was working as a social media manager at Google and lives in the city.
For them, living in the Bay area isn’t as scary, dark, and alarming as New York, or even Thailand.
The Bay area, in general, is “much more spread out” than the densely populated New York and Bangkok, Blue said, “and people are also much more spread out. They also take the protocols and measures really seriously.”
“I actually feel pretty safe,” said Pim. “I can still go out to do the necessities, groceries, go to the drugstores, drive around, and even stroll in the park — my boyfriend jogs everyday. The only thing is that you just have to stay away from people”.
The government of California was also quick to implement a statewide lockdown and called early for social isolation.
But it’s not just the local government that had acted early, as Blue recalled, all the big tech giants in Silicon Valley had implemented work-from-home policies, even before the government did.
“They actually did it first, and it’s also to act as models for smaller tech startups across the city to do the same” Blue explained, “People in SF are generally used to working remotely and doing conference calls across the globe anyway, so it hasn’t been that disruptive at all.”
“I have been working from home for a month now and it’s been great.” said Blue, “The company [Google] totally understood our circumstances and allowed us to work from home if we saw fit.”
At the Google headquarters in San Francisco, employees are now encouraged to support one another virtually.
“We now have virtual happy hour lunches and support groups, where introverts can support extroverts and check in on one another” Blue said.
“My company even gave me a bonus and it is unheard of!” Pim exclaimed, And this is a company of 200-300 people!”
This special treatment and surprise has gotten Pim thinking about all the other working professionals out there who are affected by the outbreak, especially the ones at home.
Pim’s father, who’s currently in Thailand, is in real estate with the company spread out in several provinces.
“All the offices are still open, and I am not happy about [hearing] that.” Pim said, “You have to care about people who work for you.”
