UK's first Covid evacuees: 'I wish I'd stayed in Wuhan and missed flight'
By Rachael Lazaro
BBC News
Published 17 hours ago

When Matt Raw was given an instruction to "get out of Wuhan" he took the advice seriously.

Exactly one year on, he wishes he had "never got on that flight" back to the UK.

Along with his wife and mother, the 39-year-old from Cheshire was among 83 Britons evacuated from the Chinese city on 31 January 2020.

Wuhan, which had been identified as the source of Covid-19, had gone into lockdown as the numbers of cases and deaths there and across eastern Asia rose alarmingly.

The flight to RAF Brize Norton was meant to bring British citizens and their families to safety, but Mr Raw says he feels he was "duped" and "brought here under false pretences".

In fact, he never planned to be on it originally. Initially, the UK government had said the flight was reserved for British nationals.

That meant Mr Raw faced the prospect of leaving his wife, a Chinese citizen, behind.

As a result, they decided to stay put.

Mr Raw said he even left his tools by the front door because he was going to help build hospitals in Wuhan the next day.

However, a few hours before the flight was due to depart, the UK government announced family members with Chinese passports were welcome to join their spouses.

Mr Raw says he got the news at 04:00 and they quickly "threw some things in a suitcase" and headed for the airport.

But he says he now wishes he had "never got on that flight".

"They lied to us," he says of the UK authorities. "We're being told to get out of Wuhan, 'come back to England, you'll be safe here'.

"We would have been safer and much more freer if we stayed in China.

"They tackled it short and sharp and locked down the cities and it was the right thing to do."

Fellow passenger Liping Duan says she remembers having misgivings about the safety of the flight itself.

When Wuhan was locked down, the 59-year-old Londoner was five days into her trip visiting family for Chinese New Year.

While glad to be on board the plane home, she says fears of catching the new virus made it a "pretty nerve-wracking" flight.

"Two English guys couldn't get on the plane, because they had a high temperature," she remembers.

"It was so quiet [on board]; you might hear a baby crying, but none of the adults were talking.

"I was trying to stay away from other people and wore my mask the whole time.

"I couldn't breathe properly and it was exhausting."

Despite the fact the flight landed two days after the UK had identified its first Covid-19 case, she says no-one at the airport wore any personal protection equipment.

"I told them, 'stand back, we've come from Wuhan', but nobody cared," she says.

Fears about the virus, though, meant everybody who had been on the flight was taken by coach, under police escort, to Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral for two weeks' quarantine.

Mr Raw says the 180-mile (290km) journey was "gruelling to say the least", while Ms Duan says she was shocked to see that the coach driver was not even wearing a mask.

On arrival, they were moved into a staff accommodation block, which had been cordoned off behind the hospital, sharing apartments with communal kitchens.

Mr Raw's family were quarantined with another woman and her two-year-old daughter.
Fortunately, he says they "got on like a house on fire".

He says they were "quite happy", adding: "The staff at Arrowe Park were amazing."

He says one doctor "had put in about 157 hours" and that the "dedication" of those who cared for them was "astounding".

Even the usual winter weather helped with quarantine, since "the entire two-week period was rotten".
"I don't recall weather that vicious in a long time," Mr Raw remembers. "I thought 'I don't want to go out at all'."

The hospital's medical director Dr Nikki Stephenson says she remains "hugely proud" of the care her staff provided.

"We only had 48 hours' notice to expect their arrival, so it was a very frenetic time.

"The feedback was amazing and they all left with a full bill of health, despite not really knowing about coronavirus, so I am immensely proud of how it all went."

Ms Duan says they were all "so lucky" to have tested negative for coronavirus.
"If one person had it, we could have all got it."

After 14 days, the evacuees were allowed to leave.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-55830497

But he says he now wishes he had "never got on that flight".
"They lied to us," he says of the UK authorities. "We're being told to get out of Wuhan, 'come back to England, you'll be safe here'.
"We would have been safer and much more freer if we stayed in China.
"They tackled it short and sharp and locked down the cities and it was the right thing to do."

The very uncomfortable truth.
Not only UK, EU and USA have been crippled - the West's tussle with China has too.

You hopeless b******s!

Sorry, but it does get to me sometimes - because that does F@#%*** matter.

Nb ^^ You can take that the same as the coach giving a loosing team a blast at half time, or a frustrated fan.
not from the opposing team.
and of course it is easy for us Down Under to be monday morning coaches, we had more manageable conditions.

But seriously - you need to pull together. you need to pull out all stops.
ffs the stupid bumbfenuckle aussies did it, and those chinese bastards.
Lets see what kind of grit we can come up with to get the job done in the second half.

ease up coach....

fock him
he made the choice
at least he had one
will china take him back now he's shown where his real home is

I'm glad I stayed here. If I'd have returned to Aus I'd have well and truly outstayed my welcome at my sister's or friend's places by now! Especially at my sister's as she's in Melbourne in one of the suburbs first locked down for what turned out to be seven months. I posted here way back then, that I suspected Covid would sweep through Cambodia but I stayed regardless. Might have made a different choice if it had already taken hold here, a la Wuhan. You takes your chances.

Can't help but wonder what his answer would have been on Feb 23rd 2020, after one months in lock down with another six weeks to go.....

jaynewcastle wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 1:26 pm When I read this yesterday, I thought what a prat

If he had thought he would be safer in China, he would have stayed there

It was his own choice to travel to the UK rather than remain in China

Yeah, what a fruitcake and whiner he is. Nobody could have predicted anything about this.