![Not all Canberrans took the option to return home during the COVID-19 crisis. Not all Canberrans took the option to return home during the COVID-19 crisis.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/c521af68-581a-43fc-86f4-08cfff3f2d17.jpg/r0_0_729_420_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
When the coronavirus pandemic began to shut down international travel, not every Canberran jumped on the next aeroplane home.
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Many have continued to live and work where they were as the world grapples with a deadly virus which has wreaked havoc with global economies, supply chains and medical systems.
Here are some of their stories.
![Professor William Ducker. Professor William Ducker.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/d052bebb-1c36-4ab9-8a75-d2d00806e736.jpg/r0_219_7050_4543_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Professor William Ducker, Virginia, United States
Professor William Ducker is working on research in Virginia designed to limit the deadly virus' spread.
Professor Ducker, a chemical engineering expert at Virginia Tech University in the United States, has since March been working on a surface coating which inactivates coronavirus.
Professor Ducker, who grew up in Canberra and studied at the Australian National University, said the coating inactivated 99.9 per cent of the virus in 20 minutes.
"The gist of it is, when the pandemic hit and you know, everyone was worried about getting COVID-19, including myself. Whenever I went to the supermarket I would worry about touching the supermarket trolley handle, or when I went to the petrol station, I was worried about touching the handle there or door handles," Professor Ducker said.
"So I thought I could invent something that would inactivate the virus all the time, like 24 hours a day, seven days a week, week after week after week. Rather than someone having to come and wipe it down to disinfect it."
Not yet commercially available, Professor Ducker said further tests for the coating and approval from the US Environmental Protection Agency would need to follow. Early results were published in July in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. After this, it could be rolled out to hard surfaces which are regularly touched in public.
"On an ACTION bus, you could put it on the railings you hold onto when you're travelling on the bus, when you go into the Canberra Centre, when you have to touch some railing there or push open a door," he said.
But he hoped the pandemic would show people who were anti-science that science could help.
"In this university town, everyone's being very careful. But if I drive like 10 miles or 20 miles in any direction, I'm out into different parts of the United States where you can see confederate flags flying and in those parts. People are not acting with what I would call the basic protocols of the pandemic. So I get to see both sides," Professor Ducker said.
"I think people like me need to chip in and help. And I think it's good - if you're a scientist - that the invention you have in Blacksburg, Virginia can help someone in O'Connor in Canberra, that's the great thing about science, it's transnational.
"I feel the reach of these inventions - and the vaccines people are doing - it's worldwide, so that's a great thing that science is doing at the moment."
But the pandemic has disrupted Professor Ducker's chances of his usual annual trip home. "That's hard for me, I always go to Canberra every year, you know, and go to the beach down the South Coast with my sister, hang out with my father. I'm very sad I'm almost not going to do that this year," he said.
But Professor Ducker, a keen Melbourne Demons fan, has been trying to introduce AFL to live-sport-starved friends and colleagues, with mixed success. At least there's little chance of the score getting out before he can watch a game on delay.
![Paramedic Benjamin Reading-Thompson (right). Paramedic Benjamin Reading-Thompson (right).](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/74d9a606-cfc6-4fa2-b96a-ac98a35e506d.jpg/r5_14_2053_1539_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Benjamin Reading-Thompson, London, UK
Benjamin Reading-Thompson, 23, has spent almost three years as a front line paramedic in London, a city of 9 million people. He said during the peak of the pandemic 90 per cent of the patients he was treating were suspected of having COVID-19.
With hospitals at maximum capacity, the paramedics were forced to treat people inside their homes. "The only patients we were conveying were those that were critical and weren't safe to be left," Mr Reading-Thompson said.
Despite the chaos of six or seven months of night shift during a pandemic, Mr Reading-Thompson said he was in no hurry to come home. "London is obviously not only such a multicultural city but it obviously also has such a high population density that you're always on the go," he said.
"It's kind of an experience you don't get in Canberra, or anywhere else in the world."
![Leading Seaman Marine Technician Hugh McMillan and Lieutenant Commander Andrew Petrie on the forecastle of HMAS Hobart during the Exercise Rim of the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii. Leading Seaman Marine Technician Hugh McMillan and Lieutenant Commander Andrew Petrie on the forecastle of HMAS Hobart during the Exercise Rim of the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/9aad819b-1993-49fe-940e-3f8d814e4007.jpg/r0_64_1200_800_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Hugh McMillan and Andrew Petrie, Hawaii, Pacific Ocean
The troops experience cabin fever at your place about week two of Canberra's lockdown? Imagine 116 days of iso life with hundreds of near-strangers.
Fortunately, the Australian Defence Force anticipated the need for extra-curricular activities before setting sail for the Pacific Ocean, which is where a golf simulator, an inflatable pool and flight-deck movie nights come in.
"We run our own Lego masters competition, people have been learning how to knit, there's been yoga classes, it's been an interesting experiment in the different ways we can get people to bring their hobbies along to share with everyone else," Commander Andrew Petrie said.
Mr Petrie is a logistics officer on the HMAS Hobart which was currently docked in Hawaii picking up supplies, during an international training exercise.
The HMAS Hobart was among four Royal Australian Navy vessels taking part in the training operation involving 10 nations, 22 ships, one submarine, multiple aircraft and around 5300 personnel.
This year Brunei, Canada, France, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, and the United States were also involved.
"It's not unusual for us to be away from home for so long but it's very unusual for us to not be able to step a foot ashore in that entire time," Petrie said.
Hugh McMillan is a marine technician also aboard the HMAS Hobart who grew up in Canberra before joining the Navy.
He said when he was not on watch from midnight till 4am and then midday till 4pm operating and monitoring ship engines and machinery, he tried to find down time with a book.
"I've participated in some of the yoga classes and I've been getting exercise in where I can," he said.
"You're always surrounded by people, so sitting down and reading is one way to get some downtime."
As sailors' sleeping quarters are divided into six areas with rooms for between four and eight people all sharing toilets and showers, social distancing was not really a priority.
While higher-ranking officials get it a bit better, all personnel had vigorous COVID-19 screening before being allowed on board.
In a normal year when Defence personnel docked at Hawaii, different nations would host events well-attended by the Aussies.
"This year it's going to be very quiet. Each ship will be maintaining their own people on their own ship to protect each other from the COVID risk," Mr Petrie said.
![Mike Henry with his family in Bali. Mike Henry with his family in Bali.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/2d52529e-2e5e-49ef-a754-6a699e22d8ed.jpg/r0_1337_3024_3120_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Mike Henry, Bali, Indonesia
Thousands of Australians and other expats were left stranded in Bali earlier this year when Indonesia cancelled international flights to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The Indonesian government offered them a lifeline in March by granting free emergency visas to allow them to stay in the country until the pandemic ended.
In July, it decided foreigners would only be allowed to stay if they paid for monthly visa extensions.
Mike Henry manages a Bali expat Facebook group with more than 20,000 mostly Australian members.
The former Canberran said the countdown had begun for tourists around the time Scott Morrison announced the cost of hotel quarantine would no longer be covered.
Mr Henry has operated a hotel with his wife in Bali for almost 10 years but during the pandemic they had to cease operation to avoid the risk of infection.
"Some of the bigger hotels have been forced to close due to the operating costs," he said.
"Even during tourism times people here struggle, that's been taken away and now people are just doing what they can to survive."
![Reuben Miller, who owns a cafe in Lisbon. Reuben Miller, who owns a cafe in Lisbon.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/dd4a0e12-c934-4286-a0b8-33d352b93cbc.jpg/r0_282_1920_1361_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Reuben Miller, Lisbon, Portugal
Reuben Miller took the coffee knowledge he gained on Lonsdale Street to help set up a cafe in Lisbon several years ago.
When the pandemic hit Portugal the cafe he runs with his uncle and uncle's partner was forced to shut down for two months.
They initially laid off staff in an attempt to help them access social security benefits. When that didn't work, his uncle paid them out of his own pocket. "At the time he expected he would get some government support. It didn't happen, but all those people are our friends we couldn't do nothing," he said.
March, April and May saw streets usually packed with European tourists emptied, with the government offering locals the directive to stay indoors when possible.
While Portugal has recorded more than 1800 deaths from coronavirus, it has still fared better than much of the continent.
"Initially everything had to close," Mr Miller said. "Cafes, restaurants, shopping centres and bars only started reopening in June."
With the usually bustling city shut up throughout spring, Mr Miller and his family were now discussing whether it was time to return to Canberra.
"Last year we were packed, we had a line of people out the door every day," Mr Miller said.
"When we initially reopened we were down to about 5 per cent of what we did this time last year.
"We are probably at about 30 per cent of [capacity] now."
He said with so few flights entering Australia it didn't make sense to pack up and go now.
"Considering the business is still growing and we're still getting good exposure we don't have a really good reason to come back just yet," he said. "Everybody has been bored cooped up at home and they're keen to get back out on the streets and support local businesses."
![Pretoria-based Keisuke Osawa. Pretoria-based Keisuke Osawa.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/a302412c-91a1-4172-b5b5-4cfb5c94f7d7.jpg/r77_2_573_769_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Keisuke Osawa, Pretoria, South Africa
For Keisuke Osawa, a harsh lockdown in South Africa had one good outcome. It helped him quit smoking.
"I used to smoke but because there was alcohol ban and cigarette ban, we couldn't buy alcohol and cigarettes for a long time, so I was able to quit smoking. I guess that's the best thing, right, that came out of the lockdown?" Mr Osawa said.
Mr Osawa, who moved to Pretoria from Canberra when his partner took a job in the country, said he had wanted to quit before he moved back to Australia.
"I picked up smoking since I moved here, because it's so cheap, so I always wanted to quit before I got back to Australia, so it was great timing," he said.
The lockdown period, which started in March and counted among the world's hardest, saw outside exercise banned. More than 1.6 million cases of COVID-19 have now been detected in South Africa.
Mr Osawa said not knowing when the restrictions would be eased was highly frustrating. Mr Osawa's partner's posting is due to finish at the beginning of next year - but they did not want to come home early, keen to finish the time in South Africa they started.
"We didn't want to really go home quite yet," he said.
The pair will most likely return to Australia early next year, but Mr Osawa said it had been wonderful living in South Africa.
"The weather is nice. It's a really, really beautiful country. Everywhere you go, it's pretty. And the animals are amazing," Mr Osawa said.