COVID-19 and expatriation in Hungary

No US travel to Canada right now.
I have a US friend living here in Hungary .
She's been here for about 3 years teaching English.
She's so outta here , leaving very soon.
She is afraid she may be locked down here and wants to get while she can.
I wonder how many ex-pats have already left for home?

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

No US travel to Canada right now.
I have a US friend living here in Hungary .
She's been here for about 3 years teaching English.
She's so outta here , leaving very soon.
She is afraid she may be locked down here and wants to get while she can.
I wonder how many ex-pats have already left for home?

Neither you or I are going to leave because of COVID. 

I think people should wait before running away. 

I mean, if one has a job and home, why would anyone leave certainty and stability here where many people are vaccinated for uncertainty and much higher unvaccinated risk there?

In any case, anyone can travel from here to their home country (except maybe Australians/NZers) and if permanent resident can come back in here no problem - USA included.

I suppose if one has no perm. roots here then they may wish to return to their own country.
I don't miss too much about the US and don't know when I'll visit there again.
My friend who is locked down in a S.Ca. hospital was supose to finally get out today after getting a negative C-19 test.
Seems they have lost all the electrical power in the hospital and now once again, no way to check out.
I guess they are running on generators but she can't get out.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I suppose if one has no perm. roots here then they may wish to return to their own country.
I don't miss too much about the US and don't know when I'll visit there again.
My friend who is locked down in a S.Ca. hospital was supose to finally get out today after getting a negative C-19 test.
Seems they have lost all the electrical power in the hospital and now once again, no way to check out.
I guess they are running on generators but she can't get out.

Yes, anyone can go home but there's no lockdown I know of anywhere (except Australia/NZ) which would prevent citizens from returning home.  Imagine the politics of defending a policy like that in the USA. Getting flights looks so much easier now.  But many places still needs negative COVID tests just to get on the plane - regardless of citizenship.   

Probably the computers are down  at the hospital.  I hope no-one is in intensive care and waiting for the generators to come on.  I expect they have excellent back up generators.  One place I worked at (not a hospital) had a nice generator.  When it came to using it, they noticed it wouldn't start.  Someone had stolen all the diesel fuel.  I saw that coming when they filled it up the previous month!

In the UK, if there's no care plan in place, they won't let you leave the hospital.  What it means is that if you need a nurse to see you each day, perhaps to change a dressing or similar, then that has to be sorted out before you are taken back home.

My freind in the Ca. hospital just informed us that the electirc came on in the hospital at 10pm last night.
It was dark before that.
Sounds like they don't have a great system with generators.
Perhaps they only light up certain areas that the deem important.
My husband joked because my friend is a "welfare" case that her area didn't rate any light.
Who really knows, I haven't heard anything about a rolling power outage in Ca.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My freind in the Ca. hospital just informed us that the electirc came on in the hospital at 10pm last night.
It was dark before that.
Sounds like they don't have a great system with generators.
Perhaps they only light up certain areas that the deem important.
My husband joked because my friend is a "welfare" case that her area didn't rate any light.
Who really knows, I haven't heard anything about a rolling power outage in Ca.

They probably do have generators, but they don't power up everything in the building.   Sometimes they have red and white sockets in the wall.  The red ones are the protected ones (connected to generator or battery system) and the white ones non-essential power.   Connecting a ventilator to non-essential power is not going to help a patient if the grid goes down.

Emergency lighting will almost certainly be compulsory in a building used by the public - I'm sure in CA, the building codes would cover it.  Usually these lights are self-powered and charge up when the power is on.    Things like the exit signs are like that.  Power up independently for 4h etc.  Enough time to exit the building in an emergency.

Power interruptions are going to be a way of life in the future.  We get them here all the time.  I see a lot of work going on in the area - new supermarkets, houses and other buildings going up.   All pressure on the grid.   We've just acquired a Lidl but I cannot see solar panels on the roof.  One of our nearby Aldis has quite an extensive solar power installation on the roof.   

In HU, at least 50% of the power here comes from the ever expanding Paks nuclear station.  So, even if the gas price goes stratospheric, there will be some power even if there needed to be some rationing.

My interent keeps going off and on today, in the 7th.