Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

To my dear internet censors: You had better let the people of Wuhan speak out and express what they want to say! Once they get these things off their chests, they will feel a bit better. We’ve already been locked down in quarantine for more than 10 days and have seen a lot of terrible things. If you won’t even allow us to release some of our pain, if you can’t even permit us to complain a little bit or reflect on what is happening, then you must be intent on driving us all mad!

Forget it. Going mad won’t solve our problems. If we drop dead, they won’t care anyway. Better to simply not talk about these things.

For the next few days, things will go on as they have. We will still fully support our government by hunkering down at home and following this through to the very end. I just hope things turn around soon; I’m waiting for the quarantine to be lifted, but praying even harder for those patients to recover.

As this drags on, the issue of feeding everyone is becoming more pressing. The amazing thing is the number of capable people in various communities who have suddenly appeared to help address this problem. My brother told me that his neighborhood established its own group to purchase food and vegetables. Everyone who joins gets a number and then they put in a wholesale order with a vendor. Each family gets one bag of vegetables. The bags are delivered to an open courtyard area in the neighborhood and people pick them up one by one, according to their assigned number; that way no one has to have direct contact with anyone else. If you have an issue with the quality of the food delivered, you just take it home with you anyway, but there is a number you can call to request an exchange. They even devised an entire strategy for purchasing food so that the entire process would be as streamlined and orderly as possible. That way, no one needs to go out to the supermarket and the issue of getting fresh food into people’s homes is solved. Today I also learned of a colleague whose neighborhood also set up a similar system for purchasing pork, eggs, and other items. They provide all kinds of options, such as shredded pork, ground meat, lean meat, ribs, etc., with prices and quantity all clearly marked. All you need is to get 20 people on board to form a group and they will deliver; you just need to pick it up. My colleague asked me if I was interested in signing up. How could I not?! After all, we still have at least another two weeks to get through before the quarantine is lifted. I ordered Pork Option C, which was 199 yuan. Life is tough, but we always find a way.

February 10, 2020

We can expect the overall situation to start improving at any moment.

Another gloomy day, although the sky is still fairly bright. I’m still talking to friends, hoping to get some good news. I saw one video that said, “What do you think the people of Wuhan will do when Zhong Nanshan gives the green light for people to leave their homes?” And then they cut to a montage that featured footage of several flocks of roosters and ducks soaring into the air, shots of several stylish people making a grand exit out of doorways, and people walking around in all kinds of crazy, exaggerated, and arrogant poses. I guess that the people of Wuhan have many talents; besides being able to push through a crisis and being experts when it comes to cursing at people, they also have quite an imagination.

Sixteen Chinese provinces have volunteered to each sponsor one of Hubei’s 16 cities. Medical professionals have been lining up to volunteer; they are cutting their hair, some even shaving their heads completely, [11] Many of the doctors, nurses, and medical volunteers who traveled to Wuhan during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak shaved their heads as a means of reducing the risk of cross-contamination. Another safety method employed was the use of adult diapers so that medical workers would not need to risk infection when using the restroom. and saying goodbye to their friends and family to come here to help. The videos of those volunteers are so moving. I’m told that besides the volunteers coming to Hubei, they are also bringing all kinds of medical supplies and protective gear with them. They are even bringing their own supplies of salt, cooking oil, soy sauce, vinegar, and other basic supplies like that so as not to add to the burden of these already-stressed cities. Their selflessness has really brought so many people here in Hubei to tears. More than 20,000 medical workers have volunteered to come to Hubei. You can only imagine the dedication and solidarity behind their sacrifice.

The human losses that Hubei doctors and nurses have suffered have been particularly devastating, which I had heard about some time ago and mentioned in one of my entries a few days ago. Now a massive infusion of backup troops has finally come to the rescue. Thanks to their help, the medical professionals and citizens of Hubei can finally heave a collective sigh of relief. All those local doctors who are no longer able to sustain the exhaustion of this protracted warfare can finally get some rest. Those comedians who have fallen silent these past few days are starting to post their jokes again online.

This dramatic turn of events was dependent on the country’s standing up to lend its support. Thanks to the expansion of temporary hospitals, the increase of sickbeds, the arrival of backup medical workers, effective quarantine policies, well-organized administration, and the cooperation and tenacity of the citizens of Wuhan who all worked together, this virus’s ability to spread has finally begun to show clear signs that it is waning. All this will probably be much clearer over the course of the next few days. My doctor friend also believes that we are close to a breakthrough. In the end, the reason this quarantine has lasted so long is primarily due to: (1) we lost precious time during the early days of the outbreak, which allowed it to spread; (2) some isolation procedures put in place early on were not effective, which led to further infections; (3) hospital resources have been exhausted and medical workers have fallen ill, which has hampered the ability to provide aid to those who need it.

But now that we are seeing a change for the better on all these fronts, we can expect the overall situation to start improving at any moment.

I saw a message online from a patient at the temporary hospital set up at Hongshan Auditorium. He said that all three members of his family are at the hospital and they should be able to be discharged within the next two days. He also said that there are a lot of other patients there with mild symptoms that will probably also be released soon. They are using a combination of treatments from both Chinese medicine and Western medicine to treat the patients there, and they are taking both traditional Chinese herbs and Western drugs. All their meals have been provided by Sunny Sky, which is a well-known restaurant here in Wuhan. The food there is excellent and this patient said that it was even better than what he usually eats at home; he even gained a lot of weight! His post gave a lot of people encouragement. I keep hearing that there are a lot of patients who are still afraid to be admitted to one of the temporary hospitals; they are all worried about the conditions there and would rather just stay home. But now that they have had time to address a lot of the details at those temporary hospitals, they don’t seem so bad, after all. At the very least, people can get the professional medical care that they need there, and it is much better than just staying at home. Those temporary hospitals are large, open structures; you could even hold a dance party in one! Since there are a lot of “old aunties” who love to do community dancing admitted there, of course they are going to take advantage of that open space! The video I saw of those aunties dancing in the hospital really brightened me up to no end; those Wuhan aunties are so amazing, not only in their ability to tenaciously fight this disease, but also in their ability to tenaciously get in their ballroom dancing! Shall we call this the “temporary hospital dance”?