Fang Fang - Wuhan Diary - Dispatches from a Quarantined City

You need to talk to people and cry in order to get over the death of a loved one. This is an effective method to help one psychologically heal. A few days ago I read an essay about all the people who have been posting messages on Li Wenliang’s Weibo page; their messages have transformed Dr. Li’s Weibo page into a wailing wall. These messages are not simply in commemoration of Li Wenliang; their more important function is providing an outlet for people online to release those things that have been pent up inside them. I figure that now that we are at the tail end of the outbreak and it is still a few days before the Qingming Festival, we should really establish a website that can function as a “wailing wall”; perhaps we can call it the “wailing web.” That would provide a place for mourning families to go where they could post photos, light candles, and have a good cry. Actually, it isn’t just family members of the deceased who are crying. Everyone in the entire city of Wuhan needs a good cry; this “wailing web” could serve as a portal for people to mourn and cry for their family members, friends, and themselves. We need to release the sadness in our hearts and we need to express our grief over all the loss we have witnessed. Perhaps the website could also feature some comforting music, which might make it even better. Perhaps after we have all let out our tears and cries of mourning, we will all feel a bit better. We still don’t know the exact date that this epidemic will be over, but during this uncertain period the sadness of countless people has already become pent-up to the point that it is forming a wall; moving forward, this could become a big challenge for people. That is why we need to open up a space so we can all have a good cry.

Besides this, there is another group of people that we should not be overlooking. During the early phase of the outbreak, there were large numbers of people getting infected, and it was very difficult to secure a hospital bed for patients; sick people were not getting the treatment they needed; and many have been unable to even get a nucleic acid test, let alone a coronavirus test. Some of these people died at the hospital, but most passed away at home. One of my high school classmates told me that her husband has a colleague who lost two family members during that early stage. Their grandmother died at home but the funeral home was so busy that they weren’t able to come pick up the body until late that night. There were a lot of deaths like that in Wuhan early on; that is by no means an outlier example. And since they were never officially diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, they are not even counted as part of the official coronavirus death toll. How many people fall into this category? I have no idea. I discussed this issue on the phone today with a psychologist friend of mine; we both felt that if each district in the city is able to officially register all these deaths as coronavirus fatalities, it would allow those surviving family members to also take advantage of any future national policies the government sets up for victims. At the same time, it would also be helpful if each district is able to calculate how many non-coronavirus patients died of other ailments during this lockdown period because they were unable to receive proper medical care. All these different categories of patients should be accounted for, so that the government can take things into consideration when they decide how to placate victims’ families in the future.

For the past few days the coronavirus outbreak has improved greatly, yet the public outcries have been deafening. The strongest voices have all been speaking out against the practice of using garbage trucks to deliver food to Wuhan residents. There was a video circulating online yesterday that left a lot of people utterly shocked. Who could even possibly conceive of using a garbage truck to deliver food!? The level of ignorance and audacity is simply outrageous. Are these officials completely lacking in basic common sense, or do they look at citizens as somehow less than human? I’m not sure if there were some special circumstances that led them to make this decision, but no matter how desperate they may have been, that is still no excuse for them to do something this unbecoming.

Sometimes I think that if a particular government regime doesn’t place their citizens on top, the next time there is some other virus, we will again face another catastrophe like this one. When you have a group of government officials who don’t care about the people and the only thing they seem to really care about is what their superiors think, then you can expect more garbage trucks delivering food in the future. One major problem facing a lot of government officials today is that none of them ever look at the people as the fundamental core of society; and none of them ever consider things from the perspective of everyday people. If they just continue looking at things from their bureaucratic perspective, I’m afraid it will never be enough. This is not entirely an issue of character; it also has a lot to do with the system they find themselves in. This fast-moving machine trains their eyes to only look at their superiors, while making it impossible for them to clearly see all the lives below. It’s what is often referred to as: “When you are in the game, you don’t always have full control of the circumstances around you.”

Allow me to digress for a moment: Today I read an article in Southern People Weekly , which featured an interview with Dr. Du Bin, a member of the Senior Advisor Team to the National Health Council. The title of the article was “This Has Nothing to Do with Heroism.” It was a great article, but there was one sentence that made me laugh. Dr. Du Bin said: “I don’t believe that when you are in a treatment facility the virus can fly into your eyes and infect you.” I distinctly remember Dr. Wang Guangfa, who is also a specialist in this field, saying that he was personally infected when droplets went into his eye. Dr. Wang’s comments are what led to protective goggles selling out everywhere overnight. One of my friends even insisted on sending me a set of goggles. I really didn’t want to give her any trouble, so I just told her to send me the website address and I would order one directly. I still haven’t even opened the package.

One final item I want to mention: Today I saw an official user group on Weibo called “Fang Fang’s Wuhan Diary ” Editorial Group, which was forwarding essays written by other people. I just want to publicly state that this group has absolutely no connection to me. I hope the manager of this group changes the name in order to prevent various misunderstandings.

March 14, 2020

Whose turn will it be to step up and become the next whistleblower?

A bright clear day. I wonder if the cherry blossoms are still in bloom? Normally when they bloom the weather tends to be rainy and windy, so after just two or three days the trees are already bare. That’s why seeing the brief duration between the cherry blossoms’ blooming and withering always seems to leave us with all kinds of reflections about the fragility and precariousness of life.

The coronavirus situation continues to improve as new patient cases are still on the decline. For the past few days, the number of new cases has been fluctuating in the single digits. Yesterday a concerned friend asked me if I thought the numbers might be fake. After officials hid the details of the outbreak early on, a lot of people are still harboring doubts about the accuracy of official statistics. “What if they are lying to make the numbers look better? What if those officials are lying to make themselves look better? What are we going to do if they lie to us again?” I completely understand my friend’s concerns; as the saying goes, “once bitten, twice shy.” What happened could lead people to be suspicious about a lot of different things. And so I decided to put in a call to one of my doctor friends to get their opinion on whether or not there was a possibility that people may be fudging the numbers. My doctor friend was quite confident as he responded, “They wouldn’t hide anything; there is no reason to hide anything!” That’s the answer I was hoping to hear.