RIO DE JANEIRO — Adrielly Eger, an 18-year-old Brazilian model, has left behind her budding career in Wuhan, China, and is now spending her time in quarantine playing board games and talking to family members on the phone.
For the next two weeks, Eger and 33 other individuals repatriated from China on Sunday will be staying at the Anapolis airbase, in the Brazilian state of Goias.
“We’re all relaxed now,” Eger said. For many, the repatriation came as a major relief. “It was a risky situation there and we were very exposed. We didn’t know if it was safe to go out in the streets,” she recalls.
Eger was in Wuhan for a three-month modeling contract that came to an end as Chinese authorities called for a quarantine. Anxious to leave the epicenter of the viral outbreak, dozens of Brazilian citizens joined forces and pleaded in a video for the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro to repatriate them.
Now back in Brazil, all have passed a series of health exams — none have shown any symptoms of the virus — and are getting used to their new routine.
The hotel hosting them inside the military base complex, has been equipped with internet, phones, leisure areas and individual rooms for all 34 of them — mostly Brazilians and in some cases their foreign parents.
People in quarantine have been posting pictures of themselves on social media, attending military band shows, getting their temperature taken or playing dominos. But never without a mask on so as to not contaminate one another.
One of them, identified on Instagram as Caleb Guerra, posted a photo of a plate of black beans and meat, saying it was the first time in over a year that he was eating this typical Brazilian dish. “Am I happy? I am,” he commented.
“It feels like few days and many days at the same time,” Eger said. “But I think time will pass by a lot faster here than if we had been in China, in this anxious situation.”
Brazil has had no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus and is still investigating a few suspect cases. according to the health ministry.
