3/1/2020
05:00
Happy March, AKA freedom month! Early morning! We have a Fox and Friends interview pretty soon.
06:00
Finished our interview – I was still a little foggy from waking up, but hopefully got my point across! Stay calm, protect yourself, and be prepared as the situation evolves!
You can watch us here.
08:03
After binging New Girl on Netflix and playing Hill Climber on my phone, breakfast is here! We have a biscuit with gravy, sausage, egg, a blueberry muffin, a banana, and hash browns.
We have a biscuit with gravy, sausage, egg, a blueberry muffin, a banana, and hash browns.
There’s no one to watch, right? I put them all together and ate it all together like a burger! After all, that’s how our first date went, anyway.
10:30
Temperature checks! 98.6F for me, 97.4F for rachel. Two more temperature checks before FREEDOM!
12:41
Lunch is here! Digging the bananas. Banana foster, anyone?
Pork, mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed vegetables, cake, and a banana!
13:47
We got a newsletter! There are no new cases in the past 24 hours. An inspirational service is being held over the phone as well. Deliveries are no longer accepted, as we are about to leave corona camp. After quarantines is completed, we’ll be issued a certificate of quarantine completion and a medical clearance letter after our morning temperature check. Case managers continue to be available to facilitate travel. Individuals in protective gear will remain outside of the rooms for those that will remain quarantined to prevent accidental exposure.
Here are our discharge instructions! Note: no locations are disclosed. It will be posted in the next few minutes and I will provide a link. Locations may or may not be released a few days after our return home.
Operation FREEDOM!
I repeat.. FREEDOM!
15:00
One thing to keep in mind is that there will be others that have to remain on corona camp for further quarantine – keep them in your thoughts!
Looks like we’re getting supplies or something like that.
15:10
Let the packing begin! We have our “go bag” ready for tomorrow. It’s just a matter of gathering all of the things that we’ve accumulated throughout Asia into our suitcases again – quite a feat!
15:44
The captain of the Diamond Princess has released a statement to all of the passengers. You can watch it here. Fun fact, you can see our balcony in the background!
16:00
They mentioned how rough allergies have been. Being that early voting is happening now, there are methods in place for those quarantined to vote. There are 24 requests for extra luggage so far. They reassured us that they have done this discharge before with the Wuhan residents, and it was very smooth.
There are zero new cases in the past 24 hours.
On the CDC side: Teams will come to check our temperatures starting at 6AM, and evaluate any symptoms. This should take just under two hours to ensure that it is thorough.
Once finished, the team lead of our quarantine will collect the data, review with the team, and see if any symptoms have arose.
If someone has symptoms or a fever, it could delay the process due to further evaluation/tracking for close contacts. The release date for the majority of us will remain to be 3/2/2020.
Turns out that if any individuals get a bill from hospital evaluations in the mail that the CDC will cover it. All costs of quarantine are covered by the federal government. Thank you, tax dollars!
Once our luggage is tagged, we go through our stations, then put our wrist band onto our luggage to verify that it is ours. We won’t have to worry about our luggage again until drop off.
Once on the bus, there will be an ambassador to give us pointers on how to deal with the media that will likely be there.
Another bus will go to an undisclosed location. This location has been disclosed to those who will be on the bus.
Q: When should we plan on departing? We booked for 16:00, and think it may be a little late.
A: There are many moving parts, and had to make the flight at 14:00. We weren’t able to give this information out until recently due to locking in plans.
Q: I’m on the local bus, and no one has told me where to go yet!
A: Call your case manager, whoa! Reach out to them and they can tell you where you will go. Only a handful of people chose this route – 56.
Q: Was there a reason that the base manager said we can’t be picked up on base?
A: Each installation is different – there are security requirements here. Logistically, it would be slower. Doing it via bus will expedite the process.
Q: We were told that we could have extra luggage. I made that request, but haven’t received it yet. I don’t want to be packing at midnight. When will I get my luggage?
A: You should receive those in a short time. We have the bags, and are putting names on them. You should be good to go after dinner.
Q: We are elderly. Will someone help us with our bags?
A: Yes! We have extra Princess employees who will be here to help.
Comment: have y’all ever tasted the food? It’s exceedingly salty – it’ll raise our blood pressure!
We’ve thought it was great. 🤷♂️
Q: I had a friend who left next door, where did they go?
A: There is someone who went to a facility to be evaluated. They were evaluated earlier in the quarantine as well, but due to additional symptoms we are evaluating further. Again, just an evaluation, NOT a confirmed case.
Q: How many bags are we allowed on our flight?
A: As many as you need – Princess will pay.
The weather tomorrow will be cloudy with a high of 81F.
Q: Will y’all cover lost wages?
A: Unfortunately, no. Sorry!
“You all have made the stay comfortable, and we’re all reassuring. We greatly appreciate it.”
LAST TOWN HALL COMPLETE! Dinner, temperature check, then the journey home begins!
Note: I will continue to write about our journey home, and integration back into life. I will also write about our honeymoon pre-quarantine, then shift over to other trips we have taken.
17:06 Dinner is here, and boy was it great! We got Texas BBQ – brisket, pulled pork, sausage, BBQ sauce, cole slaw, macaroni, a roll, and a root beer float. They even topped it off with Blue Bell ice cream – a delicacy in Texas! Hands down our favorite ice cream outside of a professional parlor.
20:35
As our day comes to an end, Rachel and I have just been talking about what tomorrow looks like. We know that media will make a big presence, and that the public is generally afraid of us along with our group. We’ll try to keep a low profile, but we are SO excited to get out and live life again! There’s so much that we took for granted before this quarantine (I.e. the gym, running, literally anything outside, freedom to do what we want) and plan on taking advantage of it all when we’re out.
This idea of leaving quarantine tomorrow is surreal – we’ve been so far away from this day, and here it is upon us. We are 100% packed now, have our go bags ready, and are just going to spend this last night together watching some TV and playing board games to celebrate.
Tomorrow I’ll be a little spotty on posting, but will continue to document everything that goes on with our release, and furthermore our integration back into society.
I’ll also post our next day of the honeymoon – our first port of call: Kagoshima, Japan.
Corona camp, OUT! 🎤
21:00 The captain of the Diamond Princess has officially left the ship, and all other members are disembarked. The ship is empty.
In other news, the mayor of San Antonio is a little upset due to a weak positive test of coronavirus on a released wuhan individual. We don’t know much about this – more info to come. I presume this changes nothing with our release.
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Don’t leave us hanging! Are you both still virus free?
Yep! We’re doing great! Have you found the posts regarding integration back into life? 🙂