Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

It was probably around 10 days ago that I heard about a string of deaths at a state-run retirement facility. I never mentioned it in my posts because I was not able to further authenticate the accuracy of the story. I need to be careful, with so many people just waiting for the opportunity to tear me down, not to mention the constant threat of censorship hanging over my head. But now that I have read the reporter’s meticulous interviews, which include locations, times, and actual names of people featured all clearly laid out, I don’t see any reason to continue avoiding this issue. Saying things like “I don’t have any tears left to cry” doesn’t even come close to doing justice to the true pain I have been feeling inside when I see these stories.

The Caixin Media reporter’s essay stated: “Yesterday some family members received a telephone call from the retirement home where their relatives live to inform them that some of the elderly residents needed to be quarantined. The family members responded with a flurry of questions: ‘Where should we bring them to be quarantined? Who will take care of them there while under quarantine? What are the standards that qualify someone to be quarantined or receive treatment? Have other patients in the retirement home also been infected? Will they receive effective treatment? Can you share their test results with us? Will the management at the retirement home be willing to share all information with us in a timely manner? Will the government be willing to increase staffing for those retirement homes, including nurse support and medical resources?’” Family members were extremely upset and worried as they anxiously awaited the retirement home’s response to their inquiries. As I see it, since the government has already agreed to take care of these people, they will naturally see things through and make sure these elderly patients are not neglected; the people running things are, after all, human too.

But what really needs to be said is that the true test of a country’s level of civility has nothing to do with building the tallest skyscraper or driving the fastest car, nor does it matter how advanced your weapons system is or how powerful your military might be; it is also not about how advanced your technology is or even your artistic achievements, and it is especially not related to how lavish your official government meetings are or how splendid your firework displays are, or even how many rich Chinese tourists you have buying up different parts of the world. There is only one true test, and that is how you treat the weakest and most vulnerable members of your society.

There is one final thing I want to talk about today: A few days ago, they finally unfroze my Weibo account. At first I was reluctant to go back on Weibo; I guess you could say I was disappointed in them. There are also a lot of bastards out there on Weibo, and several of my classmates suggested I stay away from that site in order to protect myself from getting hurt. But after thinking it through, I decided to start using my account again. I heard a recording a few days ago that ended with the following words: “Don’t leave the world in the hands of the bastards!” It is for that same reason that I decided not to leave my beloved Weibo in the hands of those bastards. At least Weibo has a way of blacklisting people who don’t follow proper online etiquette, so I can report each and every one of those people who come after me. That blacklist is a biosuit, it is my N95 face mask that I use to quarantine those infectious bastards!

February 25, 2020

Once the music has ended, we will seek out a cure.

The weather is remarkably beautiful; it must have gotten up to around 20 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. With the heat on in my apartment it actually started to feel hot. But with nightfall, it began to suddenly rain, a strange and unexpected turn of events. Not that it really matters, though, since we can’t go outside anyway; instead, staring at my cellphone has become my required homework each day.

First thing this morning I saw a few videos that I really need to say something about. The videos I saw fall into two categories: The first category was videos documenting the disastrous results of several vegetable donations from other provinces coming into Hubei. There were videos of deliveries being confiscated on the road, entire bags of vegetables being thrown in the trash, and other footage of vegetables just rotting away in storage facilities. There was an entire series of videos about this. The other set of videos was of citizens complaining about the price gouging going on in those grocery delivery services for vegetables. A lot of people right now are being especially thrifty with their money. Even during normal times, they are often very careful when they go shopping. When they drop the price for soy sauce by 2 fen, there is a line wrapping around the block to get in on this great deal! You ask “why?” Because in their minds they have only just enough cash to get by, so people save any way they can. Most people feel those grocery delivery groups are quite expensive for vegetables of mixed quality that you can’t even pick out yourself. How can you expect people not to complain? Moreover, after being stuck at home for so long, everyone is more irritable than normal.

These videos were all sent to me by friends, so I can’t confirm their authenticity. But no matter whether they are real or fake, I still feel that there has to be a more suitable way to distribute all the donated vegetables that have been coming into Wuhan. Right now we have a situation where the donated vegetables aren’t getting into the hands of the right people, while the vegetables being sold in stores are way overpriced. Somehow, we are failing on both ends. Moreover, it is a real insult to those kindhearted people who have been making these donations. I really can’t think of a better option than donating all those vegetables to a vegetables wholesaler that can evenly distribute them to all the major supermarkets. They can require supermarkets to sell them to the public at a deeply reduced rate; whatever profit is made can then be refunded, donated, or used to subsidize other food items. This would allow the public the opportunity to purchase affordable vegetables while, at the same time, freeing up community workers so they aren’t spending all their time transporting these donations. Of course, those work units or districts that have arranged for their own direct donations are a separate matter. The weather is warming up and it is becoming increasingly difficult to preserve all these fresh food donations. We should keep everything as practical as possible.

Let me get back to the coronavirus. This morning one of my doctor friends sent me a message saying that, besides Wuhan, outbreaks in most other cities in China are now more or less under control. Wuhan is the only city where the virus has continued to spread and is still not under control. The stress on hospitals that had too few beds is now finally starting to ease up, but the reason the virus continues to spread is not something I fully understand. Wuhan has been under quarantine now for more than a full month, which means that, assuming the coronavirus has an incubation period of up to 24 days, everyone infected should have already started showing symptoms by now. With everyone locked up in their homes, there should be very few, if not zero, new infections by now. So then why are there still so many new cases of infection that keep popping up? My doctor friend was also confused by this, and he really couldn’t explain the reason behind these new confirmed and suspected cases. What is the source of all these new infections? This is something that needs to be investigated; they need to do research on how these new patients are getting infected and then enact new prevention measures based on what they find. Although we have paid a huge price, the end result of this long period of quarantine has fallen short of our initial hopes. My doctor friend again used the word “strange” to describe this novel coronavirus. He even said that we need to hold our ground against this disease; but we should be prepared for its lasting even longer than we thought.