Canadian writer shares anti-virus life in China via diaries

Jorah Kai Wood has lived in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality for six years. Keeping a diary since the novel coronavirus epidemic came up in China months ago has become an indispensable part of the Canadian writer's everyday life.

"I just wanted to record my life during the epidemic and show my friends what was going on in China when I first started to write a diary. However, it now has a new meaning," Wood said.

Wood, in his 40s, settled down in Chongqing in 2014 and married a local girl two years later. He is a teacher at a foreign language school and part-time editor of the local English website iChongqing.

He posted his first diary on Jan 20, when Zhong Nanshan, a renowned Chinese respiratory expert and head of a high-level expert team of China's National Health Commission, confirmed human-to-human transmission of the new virus.

From then until now, Wood has published more than 60 diaries, and he still updates the series frequently on his Facebook, iChongqing's website and other social media platforms.

In his first diary, he wrote that he had finished all of his work in the school at the end of the Year of the Pig, and his family was anxiously expecting the new year. He mentioned that "news is going around about a bad cold or virus in Wuhan, but that feels worlds away from me."

But he took action by making hummus with "extra garlic" hoping to "kill the virus."

On that day, China reported a total of 291 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 270 in Central China's Hubei province, once the hardest-hit province of the deadly virus in the country. Chongqing reported zero.

Although Hubei is located next to Chongqing, in the eyes of Wood, residents did not take it seriously, and very few people wore masks back then.

In the next few days, as news coverage of more infections was reported across the country, Wood noticed more masked residents in public places.

The Spring Festival is the most important festival for the Chinese, as family members usually reunite during the week-long holiday. Wood's wife has a big family in Chongqing. They would usually celebrate the festival with over 70 family members and visit each other. However, because of the epidemic, there were only two family reunions this year, and only with the next of kin.

Wood said that, like some people, he was anxious about the invisible enemy in the early stage. He noted drolly: "Someone on the periphery sneezes and my lizard brain spins around and calculates distance and wind velocity. They're 15 meters away in an outdoor square, but I still hurry the family along the other way and pull my mask up."

On Jan 25, Wood and his wife started self-isolating to prevent themselves from being infected.