Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

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 Cun [4] Chen Cun (b. 1954) is a Shanghai-based writer who serves as vice chair of the Shanghai Writers Association. He began publishing in 1973 and has written numerous short stories, essays, and novels, including The Blue Flag ( Lan qi ) and Chinese Youth ( Zhongguo qingnian ). 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.