Allen and his brother’s accounts
Allen - My personal account
With the first confirmed case of 2019 nCoV in Shantou reported on 25 January 2020, the Shantou government announced that the city would be under lockdown. One of my colleagues reminded me to purchase some food for storage as all the citizens were rushing to buy food. However, two hours later, the Shantou government withdrew the lockdown, which may have been due to directives from Guangdong Provincial Government. In the meantime, the Guangdong Provincial Government ensured there is a supply of 4 months’ grain reserved for people in Guangdong, which eased the panic of the crowd. I went to a small supermarket nearby that afternoon. There were still plenty of goods, but the owner was going to close due to the concern of being infected and urged me to leave. I stayed at home and did not go anywhere during the following days. I had been ordering take-out food during those days. In order to avoid contact with the delivery men, I always asked them to leave the food outside the door and picked up the food two minutes later. However, on 4 February 2020, the delivery men were forbidden to enter into the community where I live. On the same day, my brother, who lives thousands of miles away, contacted me and said that one of his colleagues was sent to hospital and confirmed infected with 2019 nCoV. My brother needed to be quarantined because he had close contact with that colleague. I started to feet that the 2019 nCoV was so close by then. Fortunately, my brother has not yet shown any symptoms and his CT scan result was normal. He is still under the 14-day quarantine and I hope he has not been infected.
My brother's account
I am a civil servant of the County Education Bureau. On January 25, we received the notice from the unit that we need to go to work early and spare no effort in the epidemic prevention and control work. I mainly assisted in handling social donation materials. Because I had to work and would contact different people, my wife and two children went to live with my mother-in-law in order to avoid my bringing the virus home and infecting them. Our work was going well. As of February 3, we had received 490 thousand disposable masks, 2,040 sets of protective clothing, and 40,000 pairs of medical gloves, etc.
Unit February 4, one of my colleagues informed us that he was asked by the hospital to be quarantined and advised us to be quarantined immediately. Then I went back home. I didn’t have any symptoms though I have been in contact with my colleague several times and I wore a mask every time. Even so I was still a little worried. My wife and children had returned home during this period and I was very worried that they would be infected by me.
The next day, my colleague was diagnosed with confirmed coronavirus infection. I immediately went to the hospital for a CT scan even though I had no symptoms. The CT scan showed that everything was normal, and the doctor gave me some antiviral drugs at the same time. Currently, I am still in self-quarantine. I take my temperature every day and I am always trying to be aware in case other symptoms appear. At the same time, I keep communicating via WeChat with my colleagues who are still working in the front lines everyday. They are great and I greatly admiration them.