'The world is going crazy': Couple on remote rafting trip return to coronavirus after spending 25 days in wilderness
The couple had no idea Covid-19 had escalated into a worldwide pandemic
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Your support makes all the difference.An American couple have returned from their 25-day wilderness rafting trip to the unprecedented shock of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kate Condino and her boyfriend Mason Thomas switched off all communication with the outside world for 25 days on their rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, according to reports.
The couple, out on the water for weeks without phones or internet were blissfully ignorant of the crisis unfolding worldwide.
However, when they returned to civilization they were greeted by a very different America, changed significantly by the escalating coronavirus pandemic.
“It was a real instant switch from happiness to like confusion and kind of fear and we just kind of got quieter,” Ms Condino told CNN.
When they left almost a month ago Ms Condino considered the virus to be nothing more than an “inconvenience,” according to CNN.
“My biggest worry was getting sick before the trip,” Ms Condino said.
The couple had been rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon with more than a dozen others.
Speaking to The New York Times, Mr Thomas said: “The last thing I thought before I got into the canyon was: ‘Well, I can’t do anything about it. Maybe it won’t be there when I get back.’
“I figured if it was bad maybe we’d just all be washing our hands even more or something more serious. But not this.”
The couple now fears for Mr Thomas’ mother who has pre-existing lung problems.
When the group finally came back within range of mobile phone signal, the reality of the virus fully hit home and messages began to pour in.
“The first one was from my mom. It was like, ‘You need to text me the second you get this. The world is going crazy.’ She’s immunocompromised so I was definitely worried.”
The rafters are not the only ones to have returned back from communication barren trips to find the world completely changed.
Jared Leto shared his disbelief on Twitter of returning back to the virus after returning from a 12-day silent meditation in the desert to the pandemic.
The actor wrote: “Walked out yesterday into a very different world. One that’s been changed forever. Mind blowing - to say the least.
“I’m getting messages from friends and family all around the globe and catching up on what’s going on.”
Cases of the novel coronavirus have now been detected in all 50 states across the US.
Elsewhere in the world, Italy remains in complete lockdown and the UK has announced the closure of all schools.
The global death toll as a result of the virus has reached 9,000.
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