All makeshift hospitals in Wuhan have closed as of today (10 March 2020).
The darkest hour is finally gone.
But it’s not time to celebrate, but to remember. Remember the lives lost and millions of hearts broken.
Remember the daughter and the wife chasing the hearses carrying their loved ones.
Remember the woman playing the gong on the balcony crying for help because her mom was dying and nowhere to be treated.
Remember the disabled boy who starved to death at home because his father was taken to quarantine.
Remember the person who killed himself because no hospital bed for him and he dared not return home for fear of passing it on to his family.
Remember the migrant workers who helped build this city and have been forced to sleep rough since the lockdown.
The migrant care workers who had no home to return after they got infected while caring for patients, and no shequ (community) to apply for hospitalization for them because they don’t have Wuhan hukou.
And the migrant workers who helped build a hospital miraculously in 10 days only to face discriminations and dreadful quarantine conditions when returned home.
Remember the woman medical workers who shaved their head and then their body was used by state media as a propaganda tool.
Remember the person who donated all the masks that were substitute for his unpaid salary.
Remember the director whose entire family of 4 were killed by the virus.
Remember the family of 5 – a young couple and their 3 children – who travelled from Hubei to Quanzhou and were all killed by the collapsing of the quarantine hotel they were placed in.
Remember the pregnant woman from rural Hubei who gave up treatment after her family had borrowed and spent 200k CNY on health care and they couldn’t afford it anymore. The doctor said her conditions were improving. The next day after she died, authorities announced free treatment for all covid-19 patients.
Remember the grandpa who learned to use weibo to seek for help after his daughter had already died from covid-19 and both granddaughter and himself were infected. He died a month after he sent that first “nihao” post.
Remember the 29-year-old doctor who died of covid-19, leaving behind her 2-year-old son and her husband and first love. They had met in medical school and planned to “grow old together”.
Remember the doctor who wrote “I can” & “I understand” on that “letter of reprimend”.
We’ll never know the full extent of it. But for the tip of iceberg we know: Never forget. Never forgive.
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Crowd-sourced online archives:
Chenchen Zhang 