A Turkish social media phenomenon living China is struggling to find a way back into Turkeybut is finding it impossible due to flight suspensions triggered by the deadly coronavirus.
Burak Teoman, 27, who has been working as an English language teacher for 3 years in the Xi province of China and is known for his YouTube videos on the “teoman.china” channel, said that he decided to return home with his wife due to the increasing stringent measures taken to prevent the spread of the coronavirus across the country.
“If you want to go out you need special permission, but you can only leave every two days. We are always exposed to many question from security such as ‘Where are you going?’ and ‘When will you be back?’,” Teoman said during a video post.
“All teachers haven’t been going to school for 25 days. We are trying to teach remotely to support students. To be honest, I’m very nervous due to events continuing in this way. I also had problems shooting videos,” he continued.
I don’t know how to return in this impossibility
Responding to online critics of why he didn’t leave the country with the Turkish plane which had previously come to evacuate Turkish citizens, he said: “I couldn’t return with the Turkish plane because it was only for citizens living in Wuhan and the surrounding area. There weren’t evacuation operations around Xi.”
“I contacted the Turkish embassy in Xi and learned that there are transit flights here but an extra visa is required. Unfortunately I don’t have that visa and high prices of indirect flights is a big problem. Many flight companies canceled their flights to China. Turkish Airlines also canceled all flights. I want to come back but I can’t. I don’t know how I’m going to overcome this,” he added.
The coronavirus, which was first detected in December in the city of Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, has caused nearly 1,800 deaths so far, with more than 70,000 confirmed cases.
Economists expect that the virus will hurt the world economy by causing disruptions in fields such as aviation, international trade, and tourism.
The virus' global repercussions could also impact the German economy, the report noted.
The report said a downward trend in country's manufacturing sector is continuing.
After growth of 0.6% in 2019, the Germany economy is expected to grow 1.1% in 2020.
