"If this is what retirement looks like, I'm not interested," said Kevin Moore, an airline captain based in Chengdu who hasn't had an international flight out in almost two months.

Moore said that he's had a 70 percent pay cut since, and now spends his days idly – thanks or no thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak.

For many foreigners in China, their employment and businesses have come to a standstill amid the pandemic. But a common consensus shared is: This isn't the time to feel sorry for yourself.

"It's a major cut, but if I were working anywhere else I'd just have as big of a pay cut there, maybe more. So I'm not complaining," Kevin said.

"If the job here doesn't last because of the industry, it's not going to be lasting anywhere else either so there isn't a place I can go that isn't affected."

The tables have turned since the coronavirus outbreak has now impacted countries globally – including the two hardest hit countries: the U.S. which is where Kevin came from, and Italy where Vito Lo Castro, an Italian wine merchant also based in Chengdu, hails from.

Vito said when the outbreak began, his family from Sicily and friends from around the world were very worried about him. He stayed put in Chengdu throughout the epidemic.

"But I thanked them and told them that in China, everything is well. We should be patient and wait. Now, it's the opposite. I can send them helpful information in what's the best way to face this 'enemy'," he said.

"China was the first country affected by this virus, they face it in a good way. So we have to use the same way. Not only in Italy, in each country, at the moment until the vaccine is out. The solution to control the virus is: stay home, take care, avoid go outside, use mask, all the prevention."

Vito added that it was very hard for him in the beginning to communicate with his family. His daily phone calls to his brother in Sicily and daughter who works in Milan used to be "heated."

"I tried to convince them to stay home, but with weak results. But now, finally, they understood the situation is critical. They are convinced because some people they know already died."

Kevin shared the same sentiment. "It is being taken very seriously now [in the U.S.]. But initially what was happening in China should have been a warning to the rest of the world that this was serious."

Kevin said China came through faster than he thought it would, to get to this point.

"I think they [China] has done as good a job as they could. They've had a rough start and everybody knows about that, but once they decided this was a proper course of action, the advantage they had was they make a decision and stuck to it," he told CGTN.

"You and I are sitting here talking, that means things are getting better. If it wasn't better, I wouldn't be here or you wouldn't be here."

Like Vito and Kevin said a lesson that can be learned from China in this situation is to do what you're told.

"Americans are very independent-minded people and when people tell them to do something, they immediately question it. Most of the time it's a good mental attitude to have, but on things like these, the virus doesn't care what you think, your opinion, about democracy or socialism, it just infects everybody," he said.

"The only real thing to do is to do what you're told – wash your hands, stay away from other people, and sit down to wait for this to get done, and don't panic."

The airline industry is among the hardest hit, if not the hardest hit, from the pandemic.

Kevin, who has been a pilot for 27 years, said whether the airline industry sees a positive turn is really dependent on how the rest of the world acts.

"In this industry, if other countries are on fire, there's no travel. So it's up to the players. If each country does what it's supposed to do, the sooner you isolate the disease, test people and figure who's got it, the sooner you can be over with it."

Read more: Foreigners in Chengdu share solidarity in fighting coronavirus

Video filmed by Zhang Kai, Wu Siyi.

(Cover image: Vito Lo Castro rides a sharing bycicle in Chengdu. /CGTN)