Wuhan Diary Read online

  But there is nothing we can do. Actually, there is nothing anyone can do. Our only choice is to grin and bear it. Even though it is getting to the point that most of the patients can’t bear it anymore, nor can their families. But if you don’t bear it, what else is there you can do? I once wrote somewhere that “one speck of dust from an entire era may not seem like much, but when it falls on your head it’s like a mountain crashing on you.” The first time I wrote those words, I don’t think I fully grasped the depth of what it represented. But now those words are etched in my heart. Earlier in the afternoon I was in touch with a young reporter. He told me he felt utterly helpless. He felt like all anyone was paying attention to was the numbers, how many were infected, how many were dead—but what about what was behind those numbers? It is really a shame what these young people have to go through. They are just starting out in life and now they have to face the cruel reality of what it means to truly struggle and face death, not to mention all those restrictions that have been placed on them. I too feel helpless. But then again, when I think about it from another angle, besides standing up and putting on a brave face, what else can we do? We are not trained to help the sick. All we can do is face what lies before us and shoulder what is coming. And when we have the wherewithal to help others, we help them shoulder it, too. But no matter what, I need to bear another week.

  One bit of good news comes to me via a statistic that I just saw. Official accounts are reporting that there is a reduction in the number of people infected outside of Hubei Province. Moreover, for those patients outside Hubei the recovery rate is quite high and the mortality rate is very low. The reason the statistics for Hubei are inaccurate and the death rate is so high clearly has to do with the fact that we are desperately lacking in terms of treatment resources. To put it more bluntly, the problem isn’t that this illness cannot be treated. If you get good medical care during the early stages, it can be quickly controlled. I also saw a report that suggested the healthcare facilities in neighboring provinces have been gearing up in preparation for what is coming but in the end, there haven’t been that many patients coming in. There are some cases of patient A transferring the illness to patient B, but there seem to be very few cases of patient B infecting patient C. There have been a few suspected cases of this type of third-level transmission, but no one is completely sure yet. So some have suggested that trained healthcare professionals should transfer some of the patients via ambulance from Wuhan to neighboring provinces so they can get better treatment. Wuhan is, after all, a city that is centrally located and a major traffic hub; there are several provincial capitals that are just three or four hours away by car. If these patients get treatment, many of them will be able to escape the hand of death. I’m not sure if this suggestion will end up being a practical one, but I think it seems to make sense. But just now I heard from an old classmate of mine who said that the new Huoshenshan Hospital will start accepting patients tomorrow (I’m not sure if that is accurate). If these patients can get out of Hubei, there are a lot of hospital beds available elsewhere; the treatment conditions elsewhere would be better too, and there are also a large number of doctors and healthcare workers ready to provide support. But if Huoshenshan opens tomorrow, then the whole idea of sending patients to other provinces will be abandoned. Anyway, it feels like my wish list has grown quite modest: I only wish that these patients can have a hospital to go to. I pray for them.

  I would also like to say something in support of the young people in Wuhan. There are tens of thousands of young volunteers working on the front lines to battle this outbreak. They are all doing this completely of their own volition. They use social media platforms like WeChat chat groups to organize, and they do virtually everything under the sun. They are truly amazing! People of my generation used to always worry about this younger generation’s becoming increasingly self-centered, but now that I see them springing into action, I realize that old farts like me were worried about nothing! People of each generation are actually all the same in some way, and the older generation shouldn’t worry too much about the younger generation’s not finding their way. Last night the writer Chen Cun4 sent me a link to some videos by a young Wuhan native who was recording scenes from daily life after the quarantine. The videos documented several days of life here in Wuhan, and I watched them all in one sitting. Those videos were really something to behold. If I ever meet this young director, I hope I can give him copies of a few of my books as a way of expressing my admiration for what he has done. I’d also like to tell him that once upon a time, on a cold and wretched night, his videos gave me something to brighten my spirit.

  February 3, 2020

  Lamenting our difficult lives, I heave a deep sigh and wipe away my tears.

  Day Ten of the Lunar New Year. Another bright and sunny day. Yesterday I thought it might continue to rain, but today it suddenly cleared up. Perhaps those people hoping to get medical attention will have just a little more warmth thanks to the sun making its appearance. But many of them are infected, and they are dragging their sick bodies all over the city in search of treatment. Everyone knows that none of them wanted to be in this position, but they have no choice; this is what they must do in order to survive. There is no other path for them. I suppose that the sense of cold abandonment they are feeling must be much worse than the actual cold this winter season. But as they toil around the city in search of help, I hope that they don’t suffer too much along the way. There may not be a sickbed for them, but at least the sun is still shining down on them.

  Flipping through my cellphone in bed again. The first thing I see is the news about an earthquake in Chengdu. The quake took a lot of people off guard, but it didn’t seem to put anyone in real danger. Some of the online jokes about it were quite funny, though. One of them was: “Thanks to the earthquake, all 20,000 people from Wuhan currently in Chengdu have finally been located. Since all the Chengdu locals just stay inside soaking their feet in hot water, it was easy to identify the Wuhanese; they were the ones who rushed outside in a state of panic when the quake hit!” I couldn’t help but burst out laughing when I read that. I’m sure that these Chengdu comedians gave the people of Wuhan a “moment of laughter” this morning. Sichuanese have an even better sense of humor than people from Wuhan. Thanks to the comedian who came up with that one!

  There are a few videos online that I can no longer bear to watch; they are just too heartbreaking. But we need to be calm and collected and understand that we can’t let the sadness of the situation consume us. The departed are gone, but the living must go on as before. I just hope we can remember: Remember those everyday people who have passed, remember those who suffered a wrongful death, remember these grief-stricken days and sorrowful nights, remember just what it was that interrupted our lives during what should have been the joyous Lunar New Year holiday. As long as we are able to scrape by and stay alive, we need to fight for justice for those who have suffered and died. We need to hold those people in charge who were negligent, irresponsible, or simply failed to act accountable for the harm they caused. These cases need to be rigorously pursued, and none of those parties responsible should be allowed to weasel their way out of this. If we do not take action, how are we supposed to give justice to those people—those fellow Wuhan residents with whom we once worked side-by-side and enjoyed life together—whose bodies ended up being carted away in body bags?

  Today I watched an educational documentary about Wuhan that was pretty good. When describing Wuhan’s current state of wide-open streets and utter quiet, the narrator said it was as if someone had “hit the pause button” on the entire city. That’s right, the entire city is on pause, but for those people whose bodies have already been carted away in bags, it is already over. My heavens! Those undertakers at the crematoriums have never before had to deal with anything like this. But they say it is the doctors who really need our attention, as they are the ones taking care of the living.

  This afternoon I got in touch with a
doctor friend of mine to try to get a better understanding of what is happening in the city. He has been working right there on the front lines of this epidemic. He took a few minutes to answer some of my questions when he had a short break from his work. We talked about all kinds of things, but I can sum up our conversation in a few points. Number one: It is difficult to be optimistic about the state Wuhan is in right now, as the situation is still quite critical. Medical supplies are in a state of “tight balance”—that was the first time I heard that term, but I figure it must mean “tight supply” and that they are close to running out of many supplies, but for the time being they are just getting by. The doctor said that they should have enough supplies to get through another two or three days. Number two: Smaller local hospitals are facing some really challenging times right now. The basic conditions at many of those hospitals is not great to begin with; they aren’t getting much attention, and their treatment facilities are quite limited. My friend asked me to send out an appeal to my readers to start paying attention to those local hospitals and do what you can to provide them with support. At the same time, he said that many of these smaller local governments in villages and more suburban areas have taken strong steps to enforce segregation and quarantines, and in many cases they have done a better job than here in Wuhan. Number three: Sending patients with fevers who are suspected of having the virus back into the community is not an appropriate action. Those local communities lack the professional knowledge and protective gear to properly handle patients. How are they expected to cope with what is happening? Moreover, people in those small local communities are also quite afraid for their own safety. There is nothing they can do to solve any of these problems. I agree that it was a series of bad decisions that led to the widespread increase in the number of infections in Wuhan; and once one person became infected their entire family also became sick. Number four: Doctors at every hospital are all overworked, and specialists from various departments have all been transferred to the front lines. Right now there are still some spots available for people who are undergoing treatment; however, the number of suspected cases and patients coming in for a diagnosis is rapidly increasing. (I didn’t have the courage to ask him if they would be able to provide proper treatment for all these newly diagnosed patients just coming in.) Number five: My doctor friend suspects that the final tally of infected patients will end up being be a terrifying number. He spoke with authority when he said: “The only way we are going to get a handle on this outbreak is if we get everyone who needs treatment admitted to a hospital and everyone who needs to be quarantined confined at home.” No matter how you look at it, this is the only way forward. Based on some of the new procedures the government started to put in place today, it seems that they have also finally started to realize this.

  The coronavirus is here, and from its early phase to its period of expansion and all the way up to the point where it began to get out of control, our response has gone from being completely wrong to being delayed and ultimately to its current flawed state. We were unable to get ahead of this virus and stop it; instead, we have been frantically chasing after it, and paying a heavy price in the process. This is not the time to slowly cross the river by gradually feeling for the stones; there have been so many previous outbreaks that we could have referred to, so how come we haven’t learned from them? Couldn’t we just copy what people have previously done to successfully control outbreaks like this in the past? Or perhaps I’m just oversimplifying things?

  There was another video I saw today of a family driving over a bridge from Chongqing to Guizhou. In the car was a married couple with what looked like two children (I couldn’t quite see it clearly in the video). The man was from Chongqing and the woman was from Guizhou. Their car set out from the Chongqing side and was headed to the border of Guizhou. In the end, the guards said they would let the wife through since she was from Guizhou, but no matter what, they refused to let her husband through; in the end, he had no choice but to turn the car around and go back to Chongqing. Once they got back to the other side of the bridge the guards on that side told them that since they had already left the city limits of Chongqing, only the husband could go back in, but the wife was not permitted through. The husband who was driving said: “They won’t let us through on that side and now you won’t let us through here; what do you want us to do? Live on this bridge?” Watching that video, I really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I once wrote a novel entitled The City of Wuchang,5 which was set nearly a hundred years ago when warlords had surrounded the city. (What a coincidence that I now find myself also quarantined here in Wuchang!) During the siege, countless numbers of people inside the city of Wuchang starved to death. People from Hankou and Hanyang worked together to try to save the people in Wuchang, and eventually the warlords worked out an agreement allowing residents three days to leave the city to search for food. During that time, the forces surrounding the city vowed not to attack, and the army guarding the city agreed to let the residents out. All this happened back in 1926. During that time there were two armies at war, and yet these two opposing forces were able to work out an agreement; and here we are today, a hundred years later, and we can’t even stretch the rules a little bit for the sake of a family?! It is not as if the sky were falling! There are many ways to resolve a problem. In the end, I don’t know if that family ever made it to Guizhou or ended up going back to Chongqing.

  “Lamenting our difficult lives, I heave a deep sigh and wipe away my tears.”6 These days there are a lot of people expressing this sentiment.

  February 4, 2020

  Fate must have again smiled down on me.

  Today the weather continues to be good. The Wuhan people continue to hold steady. We are feeling a bit stifled from being stuck indoors, but as long we can stay alive we can handle the rest.

  This afternoon I heard about another person going into panic mode while at the supermarket picking up a few things; this man said he was afraid that the store would shut down and there would be no new supplies of food coming in. I felt like that was an unrealistic fear. The municipal government already issued a proclamation assuring citizens that supermarkets would stay open. Just to think through this logically: Right now, the entire country is standing behind Wuhan, and China isn’t the kind of nation facing any true shortages of material goods, so I’m sure it won’t be too difficult for the country to ensure that the people of Wuhan have enough food and supplies. Of course, there will certainly be some elderly people living alone who might be going through some hard times (even without the coronavirus, they don’t have it easy), but I’m confident that there will be many community volunteers who will be there to help them out. Even if the government made some mistakes early on, no matter what, we now have no choice but to put our faith in our leaders; we need to believe in them. Otherwise, what is the alternative? Who else can we believe in? Who else can you rely on? Those people who are easily frightened are the kind of people who are always on edge anyway; there is really nothing you can do to help them. Just now I went out to throw away the garbage and noticed a sign posted on my front door that read “Disinfection Complete.” There was also a flyer that said if you discover you have a fever, please call the following phone number for Wuchang District. From that you can tell how meticulous is the work being done on the community level. The coronavirus is a great enemy that everyone is united against; no one dares to slack off, so let’s just hope the policymakers don’t have any more missteps.

  The question of how many people will end up being infected by this virus remains an extremely sensitive topic. I’m also anxious about how big this number will eventually be. Yesterday I posted something on Weibo that mentioned the number 100,000, which is a number most doctors have long been bracing for, even though none of them will say that publicly. Then there was actually one doctor who, while appealing to the public for help, actually said the number out loud. Today another doctor friend told me that he thought that estimate was right on. “Th
ere will indeed be that many people infected. But one thing to keep in mind is that not everyone infected shows symptoms. Perhaps only 30 to 50 percent of the people infected will actually develop symptoms.” I then asked him a follow-up question: “And if you are infected but remain asymptomatic, does that mean that you gradually just recover on your own?” My doctor friend affirmed that: “That is correct.” If this is true, I suppose that counts as good news?

  But the fact should be reemphasized that, according to what doctors are saying, the novel coronavirus may be extremely contagious, but as long as patients receive standard treatment, the death rate is not too high. Patients who have received treatment outside of Hubei Province have already proven this to be true. The reason the death rate has been so high here in Wuhan is that there are a large number of patients who cannot get access to hospital care; without proper treatment, mild cases turn serious and serious cases lead to death. Another contributing factor is tied to the fact that the quarantine procedures were flawed early on, which led to many cases of a single person infecting their entire family. This, in turn, led to a dramatic increase in infections and sparked a whole series of other tragedies. My doctor friend told me that if they had been better prepared early on, based on the number of beds available, Wuhan should have been able to treat all the serious cases that came in. But things were just too chaotic during the early stages of the outbreak, people were consumed with fear, and a lot of people who weren’t even sick flooded into the hospitals, making things even more frenzied. Now the government is consistently tweaking its response procedures. The next step will be to see if we can reach a turning point; I hope that moment comes sooner rather than later.