Coronavirus: American writer flying around the world to be reunited with her family

Imani Bashir moved to Wuhan in 2019 but has been stranded away from her home since the Chinese New Year

An empty airport in Wuhan, China (AFP)

An American travel writer is flying around the world in an attempt to be reunited with her three-year-old son, according to Huffpost.

Imani Bashir has not seen her husband and child for a month after borders closed, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Ms Bashir moved with her husband and son to Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus is said to have originated in 2019 for work.

Ms Bashir told Huffpost that it has been surreal to have been involved with the pandemic from the start.

“We lived in the centre of this while it was developing and before it had a name,” she said. “For it to follow us, it’s so depressing and it’s so stressful.” ​

The family were originally stranded in Malaysia after travelling there for Chinese New Year just before coronavirus cases started rising in Wuhan.

They couldn’t go back home and were left with only the luggage they had brought for their holiday.

When other countries started to close their borders in early March, Ms Bashir was in the US doing speaking engagements, while her husband was in the Czech Republic with their son.

Ms Bashir decided she needed to leave the US then if she was going to be with her family and got on a plane to the Czech Republic.

Once she arrived at her layover in Amsterdam she was told she couldn’t fly to her destination as they had closed their border, so the writer flew to London to stay with relatives, and has been there ever since.

She understands that for many the effects of the outbreak are new, but for her and her family it has been a long process.

“That’s one thing that a lot of people really don’t understand because they’ve just been in one place dealing with (the outbreak),” she said. “But for us, this has been since December 2019.”

The writer hasn’t seen her husband and their son for over a month, but is dogged in her determination to be reunited with her family, telling Huffpost that she will do anything to be reunited with them.

“As far as getting to my husband and my son, I will risk my life for that,” said Bashir. “Getting them to me is the most important thing right now.”