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![[Teach311 + COVID-19] Collective](https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/teach311/files/2020/04/Banner.jpg)
![Diary Project Taipei [4] :: Hsin-Hui Lin (Taiwan)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/06/taipei4_pinkmasks-feat.png "Diary Project Taipei [4] :: Hsin-Hui Lin (Taiwan)")
18 May 2020 It has been over ten days without any cases of COVID-19 being reported, and over thirty-five days without a single locally transmitted case being confirmed. As the pandemic winds down, perhaps it is time to look back
![Diary Project Hong Kong [2] :: Abroo Nazar (Hong Kong)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/05/diary-hk-2-feat-img.jpg "Diary Project Hong Kong [2] :: Abroo Nazar (Hong Kong)")
My day starts at 3 AM nowadays because it is Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. We fast from dawn to sunset. While I was preparing breakfast in the kitchen, I suddenly encountered the strong smell of smoke
![Diary Project Taipei [3] :: Hsin-Hui Lin (Taiwan)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/05/taipei-3-ft-img.jpg "Diary Project Taipei [3] :: Hsin-Hui Lin (Taiwan)")
“The customers clean the tables for me,” says the owner of an eatery in Taitung, a southeastern city of Taiwan.
As the virus spreads through most areas of Taiwan, Taitung remains a city that has not yet reported any cases of infection.
![Diary Project Nur-Sultan [3] :: Diana Kopbayeva (Kazakhstan)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/05/nursultan3-ft-img.jpg "Diary Project Nur-Sultan [3] :: Diana Kopbayeva (Kazakhstan)")
To be or not to be… productive in the quarantine? I chose not to be. These days the web is full of posts encouraging us to make the most of the lockdown, to approach the pandemic as a
![Diary Project Harare [2] :: Constance Myambo (Zimbabwe)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/05/Zimbabwe-feature-img.png "Diary Project Harare [2] :: Constance Myambo (Zimbabwe)")
As we all woke up on the 19th of April, our curiosity levels were just on another level so high that people waited for the President’s address anxiously. Some got joking about it on social media platforms
![Diary Project Nur-Sultan [2] :: Diana Kopbayeva (Kazakhstan)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/05/Webp.net-resizeimage-26.jpg "Diary Project Nur-Sultan [2] :: Diana Kopbayeva (Kazakhstan)")
On March 26 things began to evolve rapidly. It had been ten days since the announcement of the state of emergency. The number of people identified as infected with COVID-19 had risen from two cases (on March 13) to 111 cases
![Diary Project Hong Kong [1] :: Abroo Nazar (Hong Kong)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/05/Webp.net-resizeimage-24.jpg "Diary Project Hong Kong [1] :: Abroo Nazar (Hong Kong)")
Today, I woke up with a strong smell of bleach and disinfectant. I thought that the cleaning lady must be cleaning the elevators and corridors again. All the hallways and elevators of my building are disinfected
![Diary Project Bulawayo [3] :: Nomathemba Sibanda (Zimbabwe)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/Webp.net-resizeimage-2.png "Diary Project Bulawayo [3] :: Nomathemba Sibanda (Zimbabwe)")
Anxiety about the Easter period is setting in. I am not one to travel over holidays unless I really do not have a choice; but there are a few staples—a church service here or two. But this Easter would be different
![Diary Project Taipei [2] :: Hsin-Hui Lin (Taiwan)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/05/Webp.net-resizeimage-20.jpg "Diary Project Taipei [2] :: Hsin-Hui Lin (Taiwan)")
My body’s defenses have been penetrated—not by the virus, but by xenobiotics, substances foreign to human bodies. In order to disinfect the public area of our four-floor apartment building, my neighbor has sprayed bleach all over the stairways.
There is a heavy presence of law enforcement out in the streets. Honestly, given the nature of this pandemic and the horrific pictures coming from Italy and the rest of the world, proper enforcement of the lockdown
![Diary Project Nur-Sultan [1] :: Diana Kopbayeva (Kazakhstan)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/Kazakhstan-Diary-1-fig-1-1.jpg "Diary Project Nur-Sultan [1] :: Diana Kopbayeva (Kazakhstan)")
Liberta/ Свобода. Freedom. How much meaning do we put in this short yet beautiful word? I asked myself this question while listening to one of my favorite songs by the famous Italian duo Al Bano and Romina Power while spending another day at home isolated from
![Diary Project Bulawayo [1] :: Nomathemba Sibanda (Zimbabwe)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/bulawayo-1-feat.jpg "Diary Project Bulawayo [1] :: Nomathemba Sibanda (Zimbabwe)")
30 March 2020 (Day 1 of Lockdown) As I begin a very late morning on the 30th of March, questions flood my mind endlessly about the pandemic. So far I had been closely following updates about the virus as it
![Diary Project Kolkata [4] :: Ritam Sengupta (India)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/Webp.net-resizeimage-19.jpg "Diary Project Kolkata [4] :: Ritam Sengupta (India)")
The pandemic must be represented by a graph so that it can be managed figuratively, if not literally. The phrase “flatten the curve” and the inverted U-shaped plot now rule the fate of entire nations. With the rather sordid rates of testing for the novel coronavirus in India, the figurative register can at times seem more necessary to control than the actual disease incidences.
![Diary Project Taipei [1] :: Hsin-Hui Lin (Taiwan)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/Webp.net-resizeimage-16.jpg "Diary Project Taipei [1] :: Hsin-Hui Lin (Taiwan)")
Were it not for COVID-19, I would be in the United States right now. As a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, I would be building my own daily routines—alone, by myself—in a foreign city.
This is the first of a series of Diary Project entries from Zimbabwe written by Constance Myambo and Nomathemba Sibanda, undergraduate students at the University of Zimbabwe and members of the grassroots organization Ear for Africa. The first entry, by
![Diary Project Ponta Grossa [2] :: Lucas Erichsen (Brazil)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/Webp.net-resizeimage-12.jpg "Diary Project Ponta Grossa [2] :: Lucas Erichsen (Brazil)")
The previous night, the president made a public statement accusing some governors and mayors of being overly concerned. He also asserted that the lockdown itself is being chaotically implemented and is overall an unhelpful measure, because the economy should not
![Diary Project Kolkata [3] :: Ritam Sengupta (India)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/Webp.net-resizeimage-11-1.jpg "Diary Project Kolkata [3] :: Ritam Sengupta (India)")
Of late I have been winning big in the shouting matches with my dear father. The urge of the family patriarch to step out, if only on the pretext of clearing out the garbage, has been manifesting rather strongly after
![Diary Project Ponta Grossa [1] :: Lucas Erichsen (Brazil)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/Webp.net-resizeimage-4.jpg "Diary Project Ponta Grossa [1] :: Lucas Erichsen (Brazil)")
We have to go buy some medicine for my mother-in-law and since we were going out anyway, we asked one of our elderly neighbours if he needed medicine as well. We were thinking about helping people who are part of
![Diary Project Kolkata [2] :: Ritam Sengupta (India)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/kolkata-diary-screenshot_resize.jpg "Diary Project Kolkata [2] :: Ritam Sengupta (India)")
The “janta curfew” that I wrote about a few days back was dress rehearsal. India is seeing a surge in COVID19 cases and a couple of days after the pans and pots being banged, we now have our officially declared
![Diary Project Kolkata [1] :: Ritam Sengupta (India)](https://www.teach311.org/files/2020/04/Sengupta_22.03.2020_img1-623x300.png "Diary Project Kolkata [1] :: Ritam Sengupta (India)")
For this day, our dear Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested a voluntary curfew of twelve hours termed the “janta curfew” (people’s curfew), as one way of initiating “social distancing” to “break the chain” of the ongoing pandemic. Quite typically of