People all around the world are stranded away from home, with no inkling of when they may be back. Just recently, Prime Minister Trudeau announced a program to aid flights home for stranded Canadians, though not all will be able to return at this time. Due to the original outbreak of COVID-19 affecting lots of Europe, flights from European countries were suspended by the US on March 12, before many other new border policies had even taken place. Since, US President Donald Trump confirmed the USA-Canada borders to be closed for non-essential travel, and P.M Trudeau has refused to grant asylum seekers access to Canada.

Anyone still abroad may be fearing they won't be able to return home, before even stricter travel restrictions are put in place. That was the case of Kindersley, SK, native Kathryn Sawatzky, who was living in Spain during her first year of post-secondary school.

"I was still planning on going to Italy in April, just last Monday." said Sawatzky in a Facebook post describing her journey home, that got more than 100 shares. "That's how un-seriously I was taking it, along with just about everybody else in Madrid."

She goes on to explain how she was one of the few that were taking extreme caution to not touch anything when out and about, but a majority of the population didn't follow these same precautions and behaved normally. Taking every opportunity to wash your hands or apply hand sanitizer only works if all people make a combined effort to combat the spread. She touched on just how people were doing their part to stop the spread of the virus, or not. Children were not seeming to wash their hands as often as needed, and even still, panic was not felt in the city. The transit systems were filled with people coughing and sneezing into their hands, proceeding to act with little caution, again as if the situation was normal.

The paranoia in the city didn't seem immense, as the first sign of the virus being problematic came only when schools were shut down. Many people remained doing their daily routine, only until government intervention. As of the 11th, schools closed, but the city saw no real closures. The two following days it was advised by many to maybe just take some extra care when going out. Just one day later on the 14th, a mandatory quarantine was installed by the country. Day after day, it become clear that more extreme measures would be taken, and Sawatzky knew she had to schedule her flight home ASAP to ensure she made it home.

She scheduled her flight home just before borders were announced to be closed, booking a flight at 8:30 the previous night, and taking off the next morning. An hour by hour process saw things getting continually worse. Cases were raising by thousands overnight, a situation we have not yet reached.

Densely packed cities like Madrid, and smaller countries such as Spain obviously have a higher rate of transmission, but she says the attitude in Canada is similar to her host country's mentality just a few weeks ago.

"It goes to show it's really hard to take it seriously unless you've lived through it" says Sawatzky, "You need to listen to the government, because we are directly headed to Europe's path, if you don't just stay inside"

Extreme circumstances often call for extreme measures. It is our duty as Canadians to adhere to the rules being outlined by the government, before a situation this uncontrollable happens. With many strategies coming out in the past week to help curb the virus, and support plans in place for people affected by the outbreak, an even larger problem can be avoided should Canadians just listen.

Sawatzky remarks how she texted her mom just a month prior, stating how there was only one case in the country. Fast forward, and over 20,000 cases have been announced in Spain, and as of Sunday the death toll rose by 30% in just one day.

She is ecstatic to see the government taking action in Canada sooner rather than later, and is happy that some people are choosing to stay home, along with brave business owners making the hard decision to close their doors. She stresses that anyone who has traveled abroad, or been in contact with a traveler MUST do the right thing and self-isolate.When she got home, she made sure to be a safe distance away from her parents, and went straight to the basement upon arrival.