Quarantine Hacks To Save Your Sanity

It’s Day 8 now. We’ve been in centralized quarantine in Shanghai for a full week and I’m ready to share some insights we’ve gleaned from this trying time where we’ve had plenty of meltdowns (from adults too), lots of confusion, some fun, and precious few rewarding moments.

You can find very helpful packing lists for centralized quarantine with a quick online search. Sadly, I didn’t remember to follow those lists in preparation, but we made do with what we had! The following items were indispensable to our daily quarantine lives:

The spork saves lives! 

Since they only supply adult-sized chopsticks, the spoon and fork (or spork!) is crucial for little ones. The knife was also especially useful in cutting fruits like mangoes, which we were lucky to get. Our YETI mugs also kept our tea hot, and let us store leftover canned food in the mini-fridge which we were also lucky to have.

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There are absolutely no housekeeping services and I only managed to beg for a loan of a vacuum cleaner for a couple of hours once. So we have been mopping the floor (because they covered the carpet with a sheet of laminate) by hand with a micro fiber cloth daily. What’s gross is I’m still finding hair that doesn’t belong to any of us every single time.

Even with daily cleaning

After baos for breakfast for a week, Beefaroni and granola bars saved the kid’s stomach on the many occasions when the supplied meal was unacceptable to young palates. A special treat, like a piece of chocolate every day, can also help lift spirits. We even brought cans of tuna, but we forgot to bring a can opener, so that should totally go on the list! (Or get those cans that open without one.)

We had been prepared not to get fruits in quarantine, but surprisingly for the first week, we were given fruits at lunch and dinner, so much so that we accumulated more dragonfruit and plums than we could possibly eat. Sadly they only gave us mangoes once.

About waimai: At our hotel, we failed to convince the staff to let us order waimai, even with the possibility of the kid going hungry and starving (yes I did threaten that might happen). However, a mom at another centralized quarantine facility in Beijing told us that she was allowed to receive foodstuffs via kuaidi as long as they were packed inside clear containers.

 The kid’s corner

A Ziploc bag of K'NEX, NERF football, Battleship, Yahtzee, puzzles, and we totally should have brought a deck of cards! Also crafts and drawing pads or just a notepad for creative scribbling.

Trust me, washing underwear worn by an active kid in summer with hand soap just doesn’t cut it. Bring a small thing of detergent. Quarantine hack: Dri-FIT clothing or swimwear dries faster and doesn’t smell as bad as cotton clothes! Oh, and use hangers to dry the clothes!

Remember that bathtub without the plug? Here's a hack to help! Fill a Ziploc bag about 3/4 way with water, squeeze the air out and seal it, then lay it on top of the drain hole. This helps slow the water from draining, enough for you to soak clothes or your feet, maybe even a short bath! Alternatively, you could use tape to stick the Ziploc bag down to the tub itself to seal the hole, and make sure you use really strong tape.

Now that you know what to pack, here’s a family-friendly routine that worked for us to survive centralized quarantine with our 7-year-old.

Cosmic Kids yoga in the morning

Tonya Ramsburg, who was in quarantine at the same time as us, had the fantastic idea to do themed days – from Star Wars to 4th of July to Christmas (in August no less!) – where the family did crafts and even dressed around the theme (i.e. red, white and blue PJs). They also prepared a new and exciting activity for each day, such as tie-dye, scrapbooking, water beads, diamond painting, science kits, and more.

FYI, her family also packed two camping stoves and enough food for a small army. After all, it was their second time going through this centralized quarantine process, so they knew what they were in for.

Tie-dye fun in quarantine!

Watch out for my final article once we are released from quarantine, to find out what exactly happens in that process!

Images: Vivienne Tseng-Rush, Tonya Ramsburg

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