In Wuhan, optimism breaks through cloud of disease

While stepping off the high-speed train after it stopped at Wuhan Railway Station on the night of Jan 31, the first people I saw under the dim yellow light were a group of railway staff in uniform wearing masks carrying boxes to the platform. The platform was almost empty with only a few passengers including me and my two colleagues.

A staff member told me the boxes contained a medicine that can treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

"We have been sending all sorts of materials, including medicine and masks, every day to Wuhan, but hospitals here keep complaining they are in dire shortage," she said, puzzled. "I do not know why either."

The general picture may explain this. The number of patients with the virus in the city was rising almost explosively－more than 3,200 cases had been reported as of the end of Jan 31, an increase of more than 20 percent in a single day. That number had exceed 44,000 by the end of Tuesday, including nearly 1,500 deaths, according to Wuhan's health authority.

Over the next few days, we went to different places, including universities, communities and hospitals, to get a clearer idea of how the epidemic had impacted people's lives, and how locals were coping with it. The lockdown of the largest city in Central China, with a population of more than 11 million, seems to be well implemented, with streets that are normally crowded with traffic almost completely empty, except for the occasional police officer or cleaning vehicles.

We heard news that patients were unable to find a bed as there were so many of them that hospitals in Wuhan were overwhelmed, and an official at Weiqun community in the city's Jiang'an district told me only a slight fraction of suspected cases in that community were able to receive treatment at hospitals while others had to stay at home for self-quarantine.

Luckily, local authorities soon pledged to admit all patients, including suspicious cases such as patients' close contacts, to hospitals or other care centers for rescue and to reduce the spread of the disease. New hospitals were built quickly to receive patients in serious condition, sports stadiums and exhibition centers were converted to temporary hospitals to receive milder patients, and hotels and college dorms were transformed into places for quarantine of suspicious cases.

Reporting about the most serious epidemic in China since the SARS outbreak in 2003, and in the epicenter of the epidemic, can be frustrating and cause tension, and I have almost become used to wearing a protective gown before entering a hospital, plus a thick mask and goggles, which causes shortness of breath. But there are also many exhilarating things.

One thing I did not expect to see was that many residents in Wuhan are actually quite optimistic and look worry-free.

At Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, I met a young patient who was cured and being discharged from the hospital.

"It was not a big deal, you just need to listen to the doctors," she said cheerfully. "I think the most important thing to fight the disease is to eat and sleep well."

In a temporarily-built hospital at an exhibition hall, patients stay in groups in simple facilitated wards, but many of them are still chatting while not receiving treatment and even participated in a group dance led by medical staff in the hospital to help ease their anxiety.

Elsewhere, Wang Hansheng, a 60-year-old retired worker in Wuhan, was loading goods he bought from a supermarket, including cabbages, eggs, bananas and milk, from a trolley to his tricycle when I saw him last week. It was the first time he had come out to buy food since the lockdown, he said.

"It is going to be OK, and I am not worried," he said. "Throughout history, Wuhan has suffered a lot of disasters, such as the great flood in 1998, but every time we have overcome them."

Wang said he supported government measures to contain the outbreak, including restricting the movement of people in the city.

"Judging by my experience, any problem can be solved as long as the government takes action," he said.

Wang Mian, a 38-year-old bus driver in Wuhan, voluntarily extended his work to transport medical staff at Tongji Hospital between home and the hospital. He said it is the first time in his life that he has seen so much solidarity between people from all walks of life in Wuhan, including medical staff, bus drivers, deliverymen, construction workers and cleaners.