Wuhan Diary
Page 20
I decided to write to a police officer friend of mine to find out what the situation was like with him and his fellow officers. He responded by saying that he and his colleagues have consistently been on the front lines of this outbreak. He personally has not taken a single day off since the outbreak began. They needed to ensure that all the basic transportation networks in the city were still functioning for deliveries and so that medical personnel could still get to where they needed to be, yet at the same time they also had to control pedestrians and private cars that shouldn’t be out on the streets; somehow they needed to be able to differentiate between these two groups. A lot of police officers have been helping drive patients to and from the hospitals; there simply were not enough EMTs and medical workers to transport all those patients. Moreover, all the roads in and out of the city need to have officers on guard 24 hours a day in order to ensure that medical aid workers can pass, while making sure that other traffic is prohibited. Besides this, a police presence is also needed at each hospital, quarantine location, and various public service locations in order to maintain order, direct traffic, and help resolve conflicts between doctors and unruly patients. Since the police have so much contact with patients, their risk for infection is also quite high. So it is not strange at all to hear that so many police officers have been infected. My friend encouraged me on: “Please write about what the police are going through; we really have been working nonstop!”
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
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
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.
It has now been a full 42 days since my second brother has stepped even one foot outside his apartment. At least I can go out to my courtyard if I need some fresh air or want to walk around a bit. At least the courtyard area is safe. Today my daughter showed off some photos of her cooking skills in our family chat group. Although she always complains about how annoying it is to cook, she is still trying her best to maintain a certain quality of life. The pork braised in brown sauce that she just cooked really looked like the real deal! The other day she said that she felt like she had lost some weight, but I’m sure she’ll put those pounds right back on after she gobbles that pork down! Her dad responded to the photo of her dish with a flurry of wild compliments. It is sometimes hard for us to imagine that the younger generation could be this capable. My daughter said that she has already saved a bunch of online cooking recipes. I guess she doesn’t need her parents to teach her how to cook; they’ve got their own way and there are a lot of great teachers online for them!
But as time rolls by, sadder things keep happening. This catastrophe has truly shattered us. It doesn’t take much to make us cry anymore. A colleague sent me a video that was taken in the community where she lives. A citizen was expressing his thanks to a local cadre and that male cadre was crying like a baby. One of the comments posted below the video said: “The people of Wuhan have shed a decade worth of tears this month.” There is a lot truth behind that comment. These tears are not just tears of sadness; they are mixed with a hundred different emotions. But don’t expect the people crying these tears to advance forward singing songs of triumph or to summon up their energy and announce to the world that they have emerged victorious—we still have many more tears left to cry.
This morning at 5:00 a.m., Director Jiang Xueqing2 of the Wuhan Central Hospital, where Li Wenliang worked, passed away. He was 55 years old and at the prime of his career. I previously mentioned the fact that I know a lot of people in Wuhan and often run into people I know on the street; I may never have met Director Jiang, but the wife of one of my college classmates knew him very well. She sent me a message this morning, describing Dr. Jiang by saying: “He may not have been a whistleblower, but he was always a kind man with strong principles. His patients all trusted him and he always made time for his friends. He helped me get countless friends in to be seen and would always say: ‘Whenever you ask me for a favor, I always do my very best to take care of it!’ Over the years so many patients sought him out because of his stellar reputation, and he always treated them with kindness when they came in for their appointments or needed surgery. . . . I tried not to send too many of my friends to see him, but he would always say that patient recommendations were the most important endorsement for a doctor.” Since she knew him so well, my classmate’s wife was really crushed by this loss; she regretted the fact that she hadn’t done more to support him when he was alive.
One of my doctor friends also sent me a message about Dr. Jiang Xueqing, saying that he was the only breast and thyroid cancer specialist in China to have received the prestigious “Chinese Physician Prize.” Too many medical professionals have tragically sacrificed their lives during this epidemic. In private, someone shared with me the story behind Dr. Jiang Xueqing’s death, and it was really too appalling for words. The tragic nature of what happened isn’t just about the loss of his life, but also concerns those aspects of his story that we are not permitted to talk about. So . . . I won’t talk about them.
With much difficulty and great sluggishness, the outbreak in Wuhan is finally starting to take a turn for the better. There are still several hundred new confirmed and suspected cases that continue to appear on our radar each day. One of my doctor friends was a bit dejected by the numbers he was seeing, based on which he made a prediction: “I think we still need another 10 days before we will see a fundamental change, but we are still probably another month away from really having it under control; then we will still need another two months before we can completely eradicate this virus.” As far as we are concerned, all these time frames—whether it is one month or two months away—are all too long. I really hope my friend’s prediction is wrong. The spring sunshine today is boundless; I really can’t bear for the virus to be the only one that gets to enjoy this beautiful sunny weather; we are all longing to get outside again.
I’ve been receiving a lot of messages about a healer named Li Yuehua who everyone says can work wonders; they say that his method of injection along traditional Chinese acupuncture points is able to cure the novel coronavirus; moreover, he has been administering treatment without any protective gear and yet continues to be impervious to the virus. I had actually been hoping to write about him here in my diary. Actually, this record is just random sketches that I am jotting down; I don’t really have a clear list of topics that I want to cover. But after getting so many letters from people suggesting that I introduce Dr. Li Yuehua to my readers—I have even received videos of him treating patients—I decided I should write about him. Some of the videos I saw were indeed quite something. I heard that he is very much willing to go to hospitals to treat novel coronavirus patients, but they have not approved him. Online, people have been arguing like mad about whether or not he should be allowed to treat patients. I reached out to my friend who teaches at the Institute of Chinese Medicine to get his opinion; he had three points to make:
Right now the crux of the issue isn’t whether or not Li Yuehua has an official license to practice medicine; the real question is whether or not his method of treatment works. If it is effective, then we should let him start treating patients. After all, shouldn’t we all be looking for practical solutions right now?
There are a lot of folk doctors whose ability to practice is hindered by the fact that they do not have an official medical license. As far as I know, right now there are two methods for capable folk doctors to attain a license: One is by going through an “apprentice training program,” and the other route involves presenting “proof of specialty”; traditional Chinese doctors can go either route to attain the legal right to practice medicine.
There are some government offices responsible for granting licenses that actually go out of their way to ignore the empirical facts and instead they just want to clamp down on these folk healers. They do this in the name of fairness, but it is clear that a lot of them have an ulterior motive. But to step back for a moment, Li Yuehua is clearly an example of someone illegally practicing medicine. However, if his method of treatment is found to be beneficial to novel coronavirus patients, the relevant departments should treat this as a special case and make an exception for him to treat patients. They can worry about credentials and licenses later. But right now those government offices are caught up in the issue of Li Yuehua’s legal credentials, and they don’t seem willing to let that go.
They have now pushed Li Yuehua into a corner (the documents I saw seem to indicate that they not only want to use procedural methods against him, but may also be planning on taking legal actions against him). On the surface, it looks like everything they are doing is by the book, but in reality it is quite cold-hearted. If Li Yuehua’s method of treatment works, let’s not get all tied up on the question of his medical credentials. Those patients he has successfully treated should have a say in this. It shouldn’t be too difficult to determine the effectiveness of his treatment methods; all they have to do is conduct a simple investigation by looking at his former patients.
I think my classmate’s comments make sense. I’m a layperson when it comes to these issues, so I won’t add any additional commentary. Normally, I don’t believe in any of those traveling healers. I once went to see a private Chinese medicine doctor about a problem I was having with my foot; the treatment he prescribed was incredibly expensive and, in the end, the medicine he gave me only made my condition worse! In the end, I just went to see a doctor trained in Western medicine to fix the problem. Ever since then, I usually stick to Western medicine. But occasionally I still use some Chinese herbs for little everyday things. But like many others, I also feel that if Li Yuehua says he has a method that can treat the coronavirus, then what’s all the fuss about? Let’s at least let him give it a try? Didn’t Deng Xiaoping have a famous saying: “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice it is a good cat.” Let me use it here: “It doesn’t matter if it is Chinese or Western medicine, if it can cure a patient it is good medicine.” We need to be practical when treating patients, especially during an emergency situation like this one. There is nothing more important than saving human lives, so why don’t we give this a chance? And if, in the process, he ends up getting exposed as a charlatan, all for the better; let’s get it all out there in the open!