Wuhan Diary Read online

  Besides this, yesterday some people online started to raise some questions about those “temporary hospital stations”7 that have just been set up; they were worried that isolating large numbers of patients together would actually lead to a huge spike in cases of cross-infection. But my take on it is that those temporary hospitals are based on a model typically seen in battlefield situations during wartime. The first thing that must be done is to segregate suspected carriers together as quickly as possible, and then send doctors to provide treatment. As that is taking place, they can then gradually work to improve the conditions for those quarantined patients. If these steps are not taken, those infected individuals will continue moving around the city and every day they are out there means that more people will become infected. If that continues, there is no way this virus will ever be able to be contained. Although the conditions in those mobile hospitals are far from ideal, I imagine that the next step will be to divide those large open spaces up into smaller rooms. But that is just my guess; I’m not sure if that is the actual plan. But no matter what, quickly separating those infected individuals from the general population is the most pressing issue at the moment.

  I saw a “selfie” video today that was shot by one of the patients at Huoshenshan Hospital. From the video I could tell that the treatment facilities there are quite good and the patients there seem to have a positive outlook. That is exactly the kind of video I was hoping I might be able to see. I hope they all recover soon, and I hope that everything will move forward from here in a more rational and organized manner.

  This outbreak is the result of several forces coming together. The enemy is not just the virus itself. We ourselves are also our own worst enemies in this fight, or, at the very least, we are accomplices to the crime. I’m told that there are a lot of people who are now suddenly waking up to just how meaningless it is to go around every day shouting empty slogans about how awesome our country is; they know that those cadres who go around giving speeches on political education but who never take concrete action are utterly useless (we used to refer to them as people who “live off the labor of their mouths”); and they certainly know that a society that lacks common sense and fails to pursue the facts as they present themselves not only ends up harming people through words but can actually result in the loss of human lives—many, many human lives. This is a lesson that resonates deeply and also comes with a heavy weight. Even though we have all lived through the SARS epidemic of 2003, it seems we have all quickly forgotten the lessons we supposedly learned then; now fast-forward to 2020—will we forget again? The devil is always on our heels and if we aren’t careful, he will catch up to us again and torture us until we finally wake up. The real question is: Do we even want to wake up?

  Thinking back to the year of SARS, that disease began to spread in March but the government initially tried to cover it up. At the time, I had an old classmate in Guangzhou who was about to undergo a big operation. I went with a few dozen old friends from all over China down to Guangzhou to support her during her surgery; we all descended on the very hospital where the SARS outbreak was fiercely raging, but none of us knew that at the time (and none of us were wearing face masks). We all traveled there roundtrip by train. Once what was happening was finally exposed, everyone all over the country was in a state of panic. We in particular were sweating bullets; amid the chaos, I told myself that fate must have smiled down on me to allow me to have escaped infection. This time I made three trips to the hospital between January 1st and the 18th, each time to visit colleagues who had been hospitalized for surgery. During two of those visits I didn’t even wear a face mask. Now that it has passed, I cringe when I think about it and, once again, I think that fate must have again smiled down on me.

  February 5, 2020

  All us ordinary people have paid a price for this human catastrophe.

  Yesterday marked the first day of spring and today the weather indeed feels like spring. Across from our house is a row of old camphor trees, two osmanthus trees, and one yulan magnolia; the rich blanket of leaves makes one feel as if winter was never even here.

  Today we are still in the middle of what the experts had predicted to be the peak period of the coronavirus outbreak. It is said that the number of confirmed cases is continuing to climb. A famous painter who I know is right now in critical condition due to the virus. My friend YL told me that she knows three cinematographers who got infected while on a shoot and all of them have since died from the coronavirus. My circle of friends is quite small and I’m so thankful that they are doing well so far. The situation in Wuhan is still grim, but not as chaotic as before. At the same time, things have not really eased up. Those depressing online videos and desperate cries for help that were circulating all over the internet seem to have died down quite a bit, and they have been replaced by positive messages online that are encouraging everyone to move forward. I’m not sure if those earlier issues have really been resolved or if they’ve just been censored from the internet. After experiencing so much censorship, I have come to grow numb about the whole thing. Yesterday I said that we are our own worst enemies; this process of becoming enemies of ourselves probably begins with that feeling of numbness. For the time being we need to be on guard, we need to be particularly aware of what’s going on with our own bodies. I’m still continually nagging my friends: Be sure not to go outside! Be sure not to go out! I know we have been locked up inside for a long time and we might end up quarantined for much longer, but we can’t worry about any of that. We might not have a lot of great food to eat at home but once this outbreak has passed, we can go out to a restaurant and order all those things we have been craving. We’ll be happy and those restaurants will finally be able to start making some money again.

  I saw a report this afternoon that I thought was interesting. Although the title, “The First Shots in the Battle Against the Coronavirus in Wuhan Have Already Been Fired,” sounded like an official government media report, the content was actually very much worth reading. I’ll provide a quick summary of the major points: (1) patients have been divided into three quarantine categories; (2) Huoshenshan Hospital, Leishenshan Hospital, and other designated hospitals are Level One facilities responsible for isolating and treating critical patients; (3) the 11 newly constructed mobile hospitals are designated Level Two facilities responsible for the isolation and treatment of patients with mild infections; (4) hotels and Chinese Communist Party Schools will be designated as Level Three facilities in charge of isolating suspected cases of infection and members of the population who have been in close contact with infected individuals; (5) once these three groups of individuals have been isolated, a comprehensive, citywide sterilization process will be put into play; (6) all hospitals will resume their normal operations (and all departments previously closed will reopen); (7) other businesses will be able to reopen and resume commerce; (8) patients will be continually monitored and their treatment will be updated based on their condition. For instance, once patients with critical symptoms turn mild, they will be transferred to mobile hospital units and if mild cases turn critical they will be moved to Level One facilities. We will follow this protocol until this catastrophic illness is completely eradicated! I’m not able to confirm whether all the details in this article were factual, but based on what I know, it seemed accurate. Ever since the military entered Wuhan, there seems to have been a clear improvement in terms of the overall efficiency with which they are facing this outbreak. The way they are fighting this virus really does feel a bit like a military campaign—clean and direct. I have a lot of high hopes for what this stage of the situation will bring. But what I really hope is that, no matter what level patients have been designated as, they are all given high-quality, effective, and reliable care.

  Virtually all aspects of people’s lives have been turned upside down by this outbreak; the effect on hospitals has been even worse. Doctors from all different departments have all been busy fighting this virus. Actually, even with
out this coronavirus outbreak there are already a huge number of patients who need to be cared for. But now all those patients have patiently stepped aside so that their doctors can fight the coronavirus; meanwhile, they continue to silently suffer from their illnesses. Many of those patients are quite anxious about what the ultimate consequences will be of their deferring their own care for so long, but they all put their needs aside so their doctors could join the fight against the coronavirus. I have great admiration for all those amazing patients. I have a colleague who was facing some major health issues and unfortunately had to undergo two major surgeries back-to-back this past January. The coronavirus outbreak erupted just before the Chinese New Year and she had just returned home from the hospital. After being discharged she still had to keep going back to the hospital for her medicine and shots, so she had no choice but to grit her teeth and drive over to the hospital to take care of these things. Her incision wasn’t healing that well and was starting to show signs of purulence. Since the hospital was so overcrowded with people suffering from all kinds of illnesses, her doctors told her she’d better not come every day as she was originally supposed to. Instead they gave her some supplies to take home so she could change her own bandages. When she ran out of bandages, she had to go to the pharmacy to buy more. But once her incision started to get inflamed, she had no choice but to go to the local community hospital near her apartment for her shots. You can get anxious, upset, or even cry out through your tears, but what’s the point? She herself said, “I just need to deal with it, at least until the threat of this virus has passed.” I have another colleague whose father is suffering from cancer. This year she made special arrangements to bring her parents out to spend the Chinese New Year together in Wuhan. Now this entire family—all three generations—are locked down together in her apartment. They can’t go anywhere and her parents are bored out of their minds; all she can do to entertain them is play cards with them every day to help them pass the time. Just now she called and complained to me that she is going crazy playing cards with them all the time. It is actually a big stress on her family. Those women in the city who are pregnant are also in a terribly stressful situation. Even if they are willing to be patient, that doesn’t mean their babies will be. It is not a good time to be giving birth. These babies’ arrivals, which should be filled with joy and celebration, have instead become occasions of extreme anxiety and uncertainty. This may not be a perfect world, but since these babies are brave enough to enter it, well, come on in then! Although this is the epicenter of an outbreak, I need to have faith that you will be received into a place that is warm and clean.

  I am recording all the fragmented stories so that those criminals know: Besides the infected patients and the dead, there are a lot of other victims of this calamity. All us ordinary people have paid a price for this human catastrophe.

  February 6, 2020

  Right now everyone in this city is crying for him.

  It started to rain again today in Wuhan. The sky is gray and overcast, the kind of windy and rainy day that leaves people feeling cold and depressed. When I went outside, the cold wind assaulted me, sending a shiver through my body.

  There has been a lot of good news today, some of which is probably the most exciting news I have heard in many days. On the radio today someone who is supposedly a specialist in infectious diseases said that the outbreak would start to ease up very soon. What he was saying sounded believable to me. The other bit of news that has been circulating like crazy all over the internet is that the American pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences has developed a new drug called remdesivir (Chinese specialists are calling it “the people’s hope”) and they have already begun clinical trials at Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital. Word has it that so far it has been extremely effective. Everyone in Wuhan is excited about this development; I’m sure that if we weren’t all following the rules of the lockdown we would all be out dancing in the streets to celebrate. We have been stuck at home for so long, hoping for so long; now we finally have gotten a glimpse of something positive. That hope arrived so suddenly, and just in time, because we were all starting to grow increasingly depressed. Even if this news later gets refuted as a rumor or the drug turns out to be ineffective against the virus, I’ll still take this bit of good news for the time being. Perhaps in another couple of days our hopes will be confirmed.

  Those mobile hospitals that everyone has been so closely following have officially opened. There are already some patients who have been admitted there who have begun uploading videos, photos, and posts about their experience there. Some of them think that the conditions are really inferior and are complaining about how bad it is. There are quite a few posts like that. But I figure that you have to expect the conditions to be a bit messy at first; after all, these temporary hospitals were hastily constructed in just a single day’s time. However, I’m confident that those other details will fall in place soon and things will improve. Whenever you put a large number of people together, it can be difficult to please everyone, especially when they are all suffering from an illness. It is only natural for people to feel anxious or annoyed; after all, being quarantined there is not nearly as comfortable as being in their own homes. This afternoon I received a text from cultural history professor Feng Tianyu from Wuhan University; he said that according to Yan Zhi,8 they will be responsible for the two temporary hospitals being set up at the Wuhan International Conference & Exhibition Center and the Wuhan KeTing Expo area. Mr. Yan said that he would do everything in his power to ensure that everything would go smoothly. “We are going to install a lot of television sets, set up a small library area, a charging station, a fast-food area, and make sure that each patient gets at least an apple, a banana, or some other fresh fruit every day; we want the patients to feel like we care.” So you can see that they are really taking these little details into consideration. I’m sure that all the other temporary hospitals also have a system set up to properly delegate responsibility. If Yan Zhi is able to do it, I’m sure the other administrators in charge can do it, too. Wuhan has made it this far; we have already gotten through the most difficult stage of this, so this is not the time to start getting anxious about things. Let’s just let those patients who have been running all over the city trying to get help finally just lie down and get some good rest; they may be quarantined, but they are also finally getting professional medical treatment, which is a good thing for them and everyone else in Wuhan. Otherwise, on a cold day like today, I’m sure a lot of them would have gotten worse or even just collapsed on the street. We have no choice but to steady ourselves and bear with the situation for now; only after things are under control will everyone be able to get back a true sense of peace and stability.

  This morning I also saw a video interview with a pulmonologist from Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University. He himself was infected but somehow managed to recover. He made a lot of jokes as he recounted his experience; he became infected through direct contact with a patient. As his condition worsened and he grew dangerously close to dying, his wife continued to care for him. She also ended up getting infected, but it was a rather mild case. He tried to assure viewers not to panic. He said that the truly serious cases that result in death are almost all elderly people with underlying medical conditions. But if you are relatively young and get hit by this virus, as long as you are healthy, you just need to take some medication, drink a lot of water, and get a lot of rest. You should be fine if you do these things. He also discussed some of the unique properties of the novel coronavirus, such as the way in which the virus infects both lungs, starting from the outer areas of the lungs, without necessarily causing obvious symptoms like a runny nose. As someone who actually had the coronavirus, he is the most trustworthy source of information you could hope for. And so we need to stay inside and do our best to remain calm. We shouldn’t go crazy; even if we get a light fever or a little cough, we need to deal with those symptoms rationally and calmly. Today the government issued a statement re
commending that everyone should regularly check their temperature. Even that announcement caused a flurry of panic; some people were worried that they might get infected by an unsterilized thermometer. But as I understand it, only people suspected to be infected with coronavirus need to have their temperature checked in person at a clinic; everyone else can just check their temperature at home and report the results in by phone to their local community office. There is really no need for anyone to break out into a state of panic. Just like normal times, during this outbreak there are still a lot of foolish people doing foolish things; but these days it is not just the foolish committing those foolish acts.

  I should report what has been happening with me. When I woke up I saw a text from my neighbor; she said that her daughter went out to buy some groceries and brought a few things back for me. They left a bag of items on my doorstep and told me not to forget to bring them inside after I wake up. As soon as I brought the groceries in, I got a call from my niece who wanted to come by to drop off some sausage and fermented bean curd; she said she could just hand it off to me at the front gate. When she came she actually brought a whole pile of things. I took one look and realized that even if I have to spend a whole other month in quarantine, I probably still wouldn’t be able to finish all this food. We are all in the same boat amid this calamity, and people have really come together to help each other. For this I express my thanks and from this I feel the warmth of the human spirit.