She chose at first to stay, she said, because the outbreak "started out as, the schools were just going to close for a week" or so. Some of her friends considered using the week off to travel, but then it became clear that life was not going to resume as normal anytime soon.
As the week stretched into a month without class, the student said "we had nothing to do." And then it became clear that nobody was "really too sure" whether or how the outbreak was going to stop. Then the past few weeks have been a whirlwind, she said.
"All of the Chinese restaurants started closing and then, stores started closing; churches and then cinemas, theaters, gyms, schools, universities — any sort of place where a lot of people gather, they just started closing. And then eventually .... the shops, even the touristy shops, which usually remain open during holidays, were closing."
When she first heard about the coronavirus, in January, "there were a couple people wearing masks, and then, in February, that's when you started noticing that the tourists were disappearing. More people started wearing masks, and then maybe every other store was closed."