Opinion | How I escaped Europe’s coronavirus crisis and made it back ‘home’ to the end of the world

I was in the Serbian capital of Belgrade when Covid-19 went global, and I had thought I’d ride out the storm there. To go anywhere else, particularly home to distant New Zealand, seemed to present a significant risk of catching the virus. In contrast, if I simply stayed in my flat, except for grocery shopping I would have almost no exposure to anyone.

But with each passing day, more and more Covid-19 cases turned up in Serbia. The writing on the wall came when it became apparent that the kind of exponential growth seen in Italy might repeat itself in the Balkans. President Aleksandar Vucic seemed to agree: he declared a state of emergency on Sunday, March 15 and closed Serbia’s borders to all non-citizens. But my landlord, affable Aleksandar, remained optimistic. A man in his forties who had watched Nato fighters shoot down Serbian ones in the 1999 Kosovo War, he felt that his country was too familiar with trauma not to handle the situation with aplomb.

I grew less sure, not least because he was in his own country, while I was an outsider. Could I avail myself of Serbian health care if the need arose? The day after Vucic’s declaration of emergency, the women working at the barbershop down the street refused to serve me on account of my race. What if some doctors or nurses felt the same way?

Then, as if on cue, the New Zealand government issued a statement recommending all citizens overseas return home.

By Thursday, March 19, I made up my mind to leave Serbia, but on that same day Vucic abruptly closed Belgrade’s airport. His decision came so suddenly that there were planes on the runway ready for take-off that had to be turned around. There was now no way for me to fly out of Serbia. A friend suggested waiting – and hoping – for a repatriation flight organised by the New Zealand government, which might never come.