SINGAPORE — Mr Chris Tong is not home long after 76 days locked down with his family in Wuhan, China, but he is already dismayed by the scenes outside the window of the Singapore hotel where he is serving 14 days of isolation.

“I can still see maids walking their dogs together and people running without masks from our hotel window,” Mr Tong, 34, told TODAY by telephone from the Regent Hotel on Cuscaden Road.

“A lot of people may feel that their chances of catching the virus are low, but you do not know if the people you meet outside will have the virus,” the Singaporean said.

“Unless there are no more cases in the community, only then it will be completely safe,” Mr Tong said, conveying a sense of disbelief at the way some Singaporeans are behaving given the empty streets he observed outside his apartment in Wuhan, where Covid-19 originated.

Mr Tong is so concerned about the Covid-19 situation in Singapore that he has left his extended family in Wuhan, where he believes they are safer. Case numbers there have reportedly fallen dramatically, and life is beginning to return to normal.

Mr Tong, his parents who are in their 50s, his wife Mandy Hu, 33, their Indonesian domestic helper, along with their two-year-old son and eight-month-old daughter, travelled to Wuhan on Jan 19 to celebrate Chinese New Year with Ms Hu’s parents, who live in the Hanyang district, a somewhat upscale area near the confluence of the Han and Yangtze rivers.

Back then, news reports of a viral outbreak had emerged out of Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province. On Jan 13, the first case outside China, in Thailand, was confirmed. But the reports were not worrying enough to deter the family from going ahead with the trip — a visit they make each Chinese New Year.

But only days later, on Jan 23, their visit was transformed from one set to be marked by joyous festivities — they were introducing their eight-month-old daughter to Ms Hu’s parents for the first time — to an extended period of lockdown, worry and uncertainty.

At 2am that day, Mr Tong learnt via Weibo, a microblogging site, of China’s plan to lock down Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, just hours later. Beijing also imposed major restrictions on Hubei province.

Mr Tong, who works at an industrial firm with links to the petrochemical industry, arrived back in Singapore for work reasons last Monday (April 13) after Chinese authorities lifted Wuhan’s lockdown on April 8, but he is taking a “wait and see” approach on when the rest of his family and their domestic helper will return. Ms Hu works in the automotive industry.

A picture taken by Mr Chris Tong from the apartment where he was locked down with his family for 76 days in Wuhan, China. Photo: Chris Tong

He recounted to TODAY the two months, two weeks and two days that he and his family spent in lockdown at his in-laws' place. His father-in-law, who worked as an engineer for a power grid, owns a landed property and a guest apartment, which was used by the younger Tongs, in the one compound.

During the lengthy lockdown, the only time they left their homes was to collect groceries from the condominium management office downstairs.

When Mr Tong received the dramatic news of the lockdown, his immediate thought was to flee the city in the few hours when that would have been possible.

“I thought about driving out of the city immediately before all the roads and train services were shut,” he said, but he decided against that as his kids were too young to travel at such short notice.

He and his wife then began to take stock of the situation and to make preparations.

OLDER FAMILY MEMBERS KEPT APART FROM YOUNG ONES

Mr Tong decided to move his own parents — older and therefore more vulnerable to the virus — into his in-laws’ landed home in order to keep his young family away from the older family members at all times.

Despite living in the same complex, they did not meet one another until after the lockdown — given the risk to the older people’s health.

Then, as all businesses were going to be shut in the coming weeks, Mr Tong and his wife had to ensure that both homes were stocked with enough groceries for home-cooked meals.

This was a struggle as they were not allowed to leave the complex and delivery slots at all the nearby supermarkets were scarce.

“We would stare at our phones for the delivery slots. Sometimes we would get messages from our neighbours and friends to tell us when the slots were available, too,” said Mr Tong.

When they finally succeeded in securing a delivery order, the complex would then notify households to collect their goods from the complex office in a staggered manner, to prevent the crowding of residents.

Everyone was orderly, Mr Tong said, adding that neighbours would avoid one another and take separate lifts to practise safe distancing.

To further protect himself while collecting groceries, Mr Tong said that he would even wear goggles. Before re-entering his apartment, he would spray all the groceries with a 75 per cent alcohol solution before throwing away the outer packaging of the goods.

“We just wanted to be extra careful as we had young children with us,” he said. Early in the Covid-19 crisis, it was not yet evident that most young children tended not to be greatly affected by the virus, although it is believed that they could be asymptomatic carriers.

KEEPING A TODDLER BUSY WITH A DAILY ROUTINE

Another challenge was finding a way to keep his two-year-old son busy.

“In the past (in Singapore), his grandparents would take him down to the playground to play, but we could not do that anymore,” Mr Tong said.

He established a routine for the toddler to try to establish some normalcy.

From 10am to 11am, his son would read. Then he could have lunch and play with his toys before taking a nap from 2pm to 4pm. He would then do 45 minutes to an hour of writing before he would have dinner and play with his toys again.

Establishing the routine also had the effect of making the difficult days of lockdown go by a little quicker for everyone at home.

To incorporate exercise into their daily routines, Mr Tong also encourages people to use fitness applications to do workouts at home instead of running outside. He uses the Keep app, which features routines that he can follow indoors.

“In the first two weeks, we were more anxious and worried, but as the days went by, time passed more quickly,” Mr Tong said, though he acknowledged that he and his wife checked their phones more regularly to keep updated on the latest news.

Singapore's authorities arranged two flights to take Singaporeans home from Wuhan, but Mr Tong decided against taking up this option.

For one thing, he learnt about the first flight, on Jan 31, at short notice and decided against it because his children were too small to properly wear face masks. He decided not to get on the second flight, on Feb 9, as he was worried that they would contract the virus from other potentially infected passengers on the plane.

So he kept working from Wuhan, and agreed over WhatsApp and WeChat with his colleagues to relax the usual deadlines as it was more difficult to get things done from afar.

When Mr Tong eventually left Wuhan, initially by fast train to Shanghai where he caught a flight to Singapore, he was required to have a green QR (quick response) code to prove that he was well and had not been in contact with anyone who was sick.

Mr Tong received his green QR code on a sheet of paper from the housing complex office as he was a foreigner, instead of getting it on his phone as locals did. He had to have his temperature taken before he got the sheet of paper that guaranteed he was safe to travel for 24 hours.

‘ORDER GROCERIES ONLINE, EXERCISE INDOORS’

He is struck by some of the differences he has observed between Singapore and Wuhan.

While essential businesses such as banks and hawker centres have been allowed to remain open in Singapore, only supermarkets stayed open for business in Wuhan.

“When the lockdown first started, we would only be able to buy groceries every three days when there were very few delivery slots. The options that we had were also limited,” he said.

He advised more Singaporeans to try online grocery delivery to reduce their need to venture out of their homes.

“Many people learnt how to cook dishes that they never thought they could cook during the lockdown,” Mr Tong said.

He added that while staying indoors took some willpower to get through during the first two weeks, it was nevertheless a good time for family bonding.