Not '28 Days Later', but '24 Hours Later' a fun and scary ride
The passengers were ordered to sit in silence - three to a row of 10 seats. They had to eat one at a time lest droplets falling from their lips spread the flu.
And when they finally got home, after 24 hours on board the China Southern Airlines flight, staff in head-to-toe biohazard suits tested their temperatures before letting them leave, four at a time, to begin a week's quarantine.
Da Jing is still getting over the excitement. She has a slight cough, but says that's because she's talked 'too much about her adventure'. One of the 98 Chinese citizens flown back to Shanghai on the specially chartered flight from Mexico, she likened the elaborate security measures they had to undergo to scenes from a disaster movie - such as 28 Days Later, about a plague sweeping the world.
'Everything looks like what I watched on TV and in the cinema,' said Ms Da over the phone from a hotel in the suburbs of Shanghai, where she and the other returnees must stay in isolation with doctors on standby around the clock. They have another five days to go before they can be given the all-clear to resume their lives.
The 27-year-old corporate human resources trainer had just spent six months in Mexico with her husband, an expatriate Chinese businessman. Her abiding memory of the flight - lengthened by a seven-hour fog delay at Los Angeles International Airport - is of the silence.
'We were told not to speak to each other and to wear masks all the time except for eating,' she said. 'Every row of 10 seats was allowed to accommodate no more than three passengers to avoid intimate contact.
'We were also told to take turns to have meals since eating at the same time could lead to contagion if someone spat.'
Ms Da, whose husband stayed behind in Mexico for work, had expected to face extraordinary measures when she landed. Still, she was taken aback when the moment came.
'People in snow-white, head-to-toe protective suits, like those seen in films about plague or biochemical warfare, filed in and tested our temperatures before we were ordered to leave the plane in small groups of four people,' she recalled.
'And then we were whisked away in buses directly from the tarmac, with the motorcade led by police cars. One of my fellow passengers quipped 'it really makes me feel like visiting state leaders'. It's a memory to be cherished.'
Ms Da said the travellers were being well taken care of in quarantine. Her weblog entries about her life in the past few days have been read by tens of thousands of Chinese internet users.
The only mildly upsetting thing was the instinct for overprotection shown by some compatriots apparently scared by the global spread of a new swine flu strain.
'When our buses, driven by fully armoured drivers with all the passengers wearing masks, passed through the streets outside the airport, we caught the attention of passers-by,' said Ms Da. 'We waved to these people standing agape on the sidewalk. But guess what their response was? They instantly covered their mouths and nostrils with their hands. Weren't they taking things a bit far? 'Don't get me wrong, I felt more amused than angry at this scene.'
