Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

The people of Wuhan have a popular saying: “When you’re busy, you work yourself to death; when you’re idle, you bore yourself to death!” But now it seems clear: When you are idle it is the psychological stress that gets you; when you are busy it is the physical stress that gets you. We all need to grit our teeth and get through this together.

For the past few days, reporters have been investigating why there was an almost 20-day lag in responding to the initial outbreak. They have been chasing this story with great tenacity and the deeper they dig, the clearer the picture is becoming. It is hard not to admire what they are doing. A lot of great journalists may have left the field, but there are still some amazing reporters out there doing good work. One reporter rolled out a timeline that clearly shows that for some reason the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission waited several days before making a report.

One investigative reporter interviewed a specialist who claimed that he didn’t know what had been happening. He was even suspicious about whether there were any doctors who had really been infected, so he called to ask, but everyone denied it. I decided to check with one of my doctor friends, so I asked him: “I heard that there were some specialists who called the hospital to ask about the virus early on?” My friend responded: “There is no way they could call us at the hospital.” So I followed up, “But couldn’t they have called and spoken to one of the hospital administrators?” My friend said he wasn’t sure. I then called another doctor friend to get her perspective on this. She was extremely direct in her answers: “They all came down here to the hospital; how is it possible that they didn’t know?” But according to the specialists, it is a big hospital and there was no way for them to check everything. The officials just said that they were following the advice of the specialists. I told my doctor friend what those officials and specialists had said and she replied: “Actually, all the doctors knew that there was human-to-human transmission going on with this virus; we all reported it. But no one informed the public, at least not until Zhong Nanshan arrived in Wuhan and made a public statement about it.” Another doctor I know told me: “The silence of the collective is always the most terrifying thing.” But then who is actually included among this “collective”? I didn’t ask him that question; I didn’t want to make things complicated; after all, I’m not a reporter. But someone online summed things up perfectly when he said: “The blame game contest has officially begun!”

Let me share a few quotes from an interview with Dr. Peng Zhiyong, director of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University:

This virus indeed spread extremely quickly. On January 10, our 16 ICU beds were already full. When I saw how serious things were, I immediately went to the hospital administrators and said that we need to report what is happening. They also thought the situation was grave and sent a report to the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission. On January 12 the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission sent a three-person team of specialists to Zhongnan Hospital to investigate. Based on their clinical observations, the specialists thought that the virus somewhat resembled SARS; however, they insisted on sticking to standard diagnostic protocols. During the next few days, our hospital administrators followed up several times with the Health Commission, and I know that other hospitals did as well.

Just before this, the National Health Commission had already sent a team of specialists to Jinyintan Hospital to investigate. They came up with a set of standards for diagnosis, such as having visited the Huanan Seafood Market, fever, and a positive test result for the presence of the virus; only when all three of these criteria were met could a patient be confirmed as positive. They were especially strict about that third criteria, even when in reality very few people were actually tested.

Based on my past knowledge and clinical observations treating patients, I deemed this illness to be a strong contagious virus that should require the highest level of protective measures. Viruses don’t bend to the will of man; we need to respect the spirit of science and move forward based on what the scientific evidence tells us. Responding to my requests, Zhongnan Hospital’s ICU adopted strict quarantine measures, and our department only had two medical workers who were infected with the novel coronavirus. As of January 28, hospital-wide there were only 40 medical workers who were infected, a number much lower than at other hospitals.

From the previous three paragraphs, you can see that the situation was quite dire before January 10th. In the end, doctors needed to individually take action to protect themselves. And even at Zhongnan Hospital where they took aggressive protective actions early on, they still had 40 medical workers who were infected, which is a very low rate of infection as compared to other hospitals. If you think about it, the whip of collective silence struck down on all of us. This is something that all hospitals will need to reflect on once the epidemic has passed.

In the afternoon I spent a long time talking to a friend about how the coronavirus has been affecting children. This virus has torn so many families apart; but in some ways the children have been affected even worse than the elderly. How many children have been orphaned over the course of this outbreak? I’m not sure if anyone has even calculated that figure yet. Just among the doctors who have died that we know about, there are already four: two infants and two unborn children whose fathers have already died. My friend told me that there is an entire group of around two dozen children who have lost both parents to the coronavirus; then there are many others who have had both of their parents ordered into hospital quarantine or have lost one of their parents. The government has already made arrangements for these children to be taken care of together in a group home. They are all minors; some of the young ones are just four or five years old. According to my friend, many of them are terrified by the sight of people wearing biosuits and face masks. At that tender age they probably don’t even know how to express their fears and share their feelings with anyone. Sure, their basic essentials are now all being taken care of, but what about the psychological scars inside them? This is especially important in the case of those newly orphaned children. Those big, strong trees that once sheltered them from the wind and rain have now been toppled and they have no one left to rely on; many of them will never know unconditional parental love again. I wonder if there is anyone there to help them through this pain? As my friend always says, the earlier they receive psychological intervention, the better.

I keep hearing these recordings online of a child somewhere crying and screaming: “Mommy, don’t leave me! I love you so much, Mommy….” As a mother, anytime I hear such a voice, I can’t help but feel a cold shiver run through my entire body.

March 1, 2020

We still have many more tears left to cry.

As we move further and further away from the Lunar New Year, I have decided to start using the Western calendar instead of the lunar calendar to date all my entries. [1] In the original Chinese edition of Wuhan Diary , all entries from January 25 through February 29 are dated using the lunar calendar. Starting March 1, entries use the Western calendar for dating. At the author’s suggestion, this edition exclusively employs dates from the latter calendar.

The weather continues to fluctuate back and forth between clear and cloudy, which makes a lot of people even more stressed out. I only now suddenly realize that today is Sunday. When you are cooped up at home all the time, one of the biggest problems is that you completely lose track of time. I usually have no idea what the date is and have even more trouble remembering what day of the week it is. When can I go outside? When can the city open back up? These are the questions that are weighing most heavily on us these days. Everyone can now clearly see that things are improving with the coronavirus. Everyone in China is pitching in to help Wuhan get through this difficult period. We will get past this; everyone in Wuhan has the self-confidence to get us through this. It’s just that we still don’t know when we will be able to go outside again or when the city will finally reopen. In private, this is all that anyone is talking about.