People in the Epidemic (1) - Everyone is the protagonist of absurd novels | Around the Furnace · CUHK

From 20 to 22 years, people's panic about the epidemic has already spread from the virus itself to all aspects of life under the influence of the epidemic. The sudden blockade, the shortage of commonly used medicines and food, the unreachable information and calls for help, the individuals are small and powerless in the disorderly and chaotic environment. Antigen kits with two bars, the uncertain future predicted by countless phone calls, and two overlapping and staggered memories of the epidemic.

 X: In my dream, I was moving stones in the mine,
fight the virus

1

Three people, six bars

In fact, at the beginning of the epidemic, our community was not too affected, and no one was infected, so at the beginning of the material life, these things were not too affected, and everyone was not too anxious. Around the end of March, the neighborhood committee also sent a wave of supplies. Although it was not enough for a family to eat for a few days, it was not enough to run out of food.

But on April 2, we had the first wave of confirmed residents in our community. That day, my mother started to have a sore throat, but because the nucleic acid test just the day before was still negative, she just treated the common cold and did not isolate herself from her family. measure. On the 3rd, three people in our family were tested for antigens, and they were all negative. But I started to have a fever that day, and at night I dreamed that I was carrying stones with many people in the rugged and complicated mine. I vaguely remember that someone told me in the dream that I was fighting a virus. I always felt a bit of a Sisyphus-esque metaphor. I was pushing a stone to a dark mine with no end in sight. I didn’t know why I was pushing the stone, but it seemed like I had no choice. When I woke up, I felt pain all over my body, and the fever did not subside. Due to the confirmed cases in the community in the past few days, I was worried that it might be the new crown, so I told my family members not to enter my room and keep a certain distance from me. After that, we did another nucleic acid test, and the results were all negative. On the 5th, my fever was basically gone, but I started to feel obvious sore throat and headache, but the nucleic acid test that afternoon was still negative, so I thought I was infected by another virus.

But on the morning of the 6th, my family and I took a self-antigen test. The three members of the family added up to six bars, and all of them were hit. We contacted the neighborhood committee by phone, and when they sent us the antigen for review, they sent it to the neighbor next door by mistake. The neighbor upstairs wanted to send us some cold medicine after learning that we tested positive. As a result, after going out, he asked her why she was going out. She had no choice but to take a wire and hang something to pass it down. We were very moved at the time, because in fact, we were not very familiar with each other. That afternoon, "Dabai" came to do a nucleic acid test for us to review the infection situation. At that time, we were about to run out of food, and there was no rice at home, so we asked neighbors who were familiar with other buildings for help, and they brought the rice downstairs to our house. But we couldn't go downstairs to get it because we tested positive, so we were trying to contact the volunteers in the building, hoping they could help bring rice upstairs. At that time, the volunteers in our community were completely self-organized by the residents, and the neighborhood committee did not care much. A large number of guards and cleaning personnel were diagnosed with the disease, so there were very few personnel. The protective clothing was bought by everyone with funds raised together. from. In short, due to the shortage of human resources, we have been unable to get through the phone. After finally getting through, the volunteers said that the work for the day was over, and they had taken off the protective clothing, so they had to wait until tomorrow to give us the rice.

2

From the transfer station to the shelter

On the evening of the 7th, we received a call from CDC, which showed that the nucleic acid test was abnormal, and informed us to wait for the follow-up arrangement for isolation. We thought we would wait for a long time, so we were going to wash our heads, pack our bags and get a good night's sleep, but we received a call from the neighborhood committee two hours later that day, saying that the CDC would arrive at 10 p.m. Take us to quarantine. I feel a little strange. Theoretically, the difference between confirmed diagnosis and asymptomatic is the presence or absence of CT imaging features of new coronary pneumonia, and we have not checked lung images, how can we determine whether we are asymptomatic? I just asked many patients and they didn't know, but the nurse's sister said that symptom diagnosis is not their responsibility, but the responsibility of the CDC. The people they received here are already asymptomatic by default. Questions during a pandemic seem to be like this, vaguely always unanswered. After a while, the neighborhood committee informed us to take precautions at the gate of the community, saying that it was really simple. We didn't have protective clothing, not even gloves and masks. We just dragged our suitcases and put on masks at the gate waiting for transfer. our people.

We boarded the transfer bus smoothly and picked up a lot of people, most of them middle-aged and elderly people. After about an hour or so, we arrived at the quarantine point, and later I learned that the place was actually just a temporary transit station transformed from a public office. We lived in a room the size of a teacher's office, barely able to fit five beds with about a metre between them. There are windows in the room, and the ventilation conditions are OK, but there are no bedside tables and other storage facilities, which is somewhat troublesome for class and office work. You can only use pillows and quilts as a table. There is only one working socket in the room, and each person is provided with a washbasin, a towel, five disposable cups, toothbrush and toothpaste, and slippers. One suite has two kettles and one drag strip. We slept in sleeping bags with a quilt but it was uncomfortable to cover. Most of the people in the isolation point are wearing masks, but I think it doesn't matter if they are positive anyway, so I don't pay much attention to wearing masks. At night, I found that there was a bathroom in the depths of the toilet. It was a miracle, and the shower head was in such good condition that it could even be removed for use.

The environment at the isolation point was very noisy. I was woken up early the next morning and couldn’t fall asleep. The aunt and uncle next to me liked to play short videos loudly on their mobile phones. Perhaps because we were the first few batches to move in, the overall order was relatively chaotic, and everyone's living conditions were very "primitive". The lunch boxes were distributed to each floor, rather than placed at the door of the room, and a very magical scene also appeared: eating at the isolation point must be robbed. Some people will take a few more servings, and if they go late, they will not be able to eat. Half of the people didn't get the sour cream and fruit, including me of course. Later, the WeChat group released information on recruiting volunteers from patients. The volunteers on the floor spontaneously organized people living in the isolation point, and everything became more orderly. The volunteers would put meals at the door of the room, so that Everyone can eat.

The aunt who lived next to me at that time was an aunt who worked in the Xinzhuang vegetable market. She was blocked in the vegetable market on the 10th of March, because the community has been closed, and if she returned to the community, there would be no way. If they go out to continue working, the community will not accept them, so they can only live in the vegetable market. People who live in the vegetable market have to self-test for antigens every day. My aunt was infected in early April and was sent to the isolation point around the same time as me.

The group chat at the transfer station also saw messages from some people who helped build the shelter, saying that they were temporarily placed here after returning from work, but they have not been notified when they can be arranged for nucleic acid testing and when they can leave. here.

It was only when I was there that I learned that many people were sent here because of mixed test abnormalities. Some of them were negative in the single-tube review, and some were negative in the antigen self-test. They tried to call 110, tried to verify information from various departments, and tried to communicate, but all appeals were unsuccessful, and they were still pulled over. The people who answered the phone just said, "That's the information we received, we're going to take you away." But they couldn't do anything. They just called and repeated the phrase "we are all negative" over and over again. After posting screenshots of their recent nucleic acid results, all they can do is look forward to their name appearing on the nucleic acid negative list published by Fangcang every day. Of course, it may also be that the health cloud display is wrong, and the information is not delivered properly. There are people like this around me all the time, with different nicknames in group chats posting similar content, but no one has faced the mistake head on. Everyone was pulled away when they were pulled away. They could only resist a few words in the group, and they did not dare to really defy the power and refused to be pulled away. I only started wearing a mask after knowing this, and I was afraid of infecting people who weren't.

There was also a severely diabetic patient there, but he had no insulin and was very ill. The family said they wanted to transfer him to the hospital, but the staff only told them that the second batch had been reported, but they didn't know when the second batch would be transferred.

3

cabin life

I got a call on the afternoon of the 9th and was told I was going to be transported tonight so I was prepared. My parents didn't receive the call. They asked the relevant responsible personnel and learned that they were only responsible for the notification, only the list, but not the specific situation. There is also a family around, with a seven-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old child, who were separated on the list. They are reporting to the staff and do not know the result.

That night, I was transferred to the Fangcang cabin hospital. This is a newly opened Fangcang cabin. The overall environment is okay, and there is even a shower room. And you can also leave your own compartment at will, and walk around the outdoors and other places within the square cabin. There is a lot of space for activities here, just like a high school campus. However, it is more inconvenient that men and women live together, and toilets and showers are also mixed. On the first day, the supplies were not delivered, not even a toothbrush, so I could only take it for a while. The next day we didn’t know why we didn’t have breakfast. We were watching breakfast from 8:00 to 10:00. Later, we went to the material point in the back to fight for breakfast, and the kind aunt next door also helped me grab a meal. At noon, volunteers in each area were organized to take and distribute meals, which gradually became orderly. I thought there would be some treatment in the Fangcang shelter hospital, but in fact, everyone was asymptomatic. The medical staff only issued some Lianhua Qingwen, and other cold and cough medicines were not distributed. I have never taken medicine, because my symptoms were almost healed when I got to the cabin.

After I came to the square cabin, I also heard that many people said that they did not want to go home, because there are sour cream, milk, and fruit here every day. . I don't know why there are almost no Shanghainese here, everyone speaks Mandarin with various accents in the cabin. There are many migrant workers and aunties from vegetable market vendors. Many of them can only live in small shared rooms when they go home. They have to worry about how to get supplies and how to make ends meet in the dilemma of life and work brought about by the epidemic. A bath, a bed, and three meals a day might not be bad for them.

Since the third day of staying in the cabin, people around have received notices that the nucleic acid has turned negative and can be discharged from the hospital, but some of them have turned positive again when the nucleic acid tested on the day they returned home, so people have been recalled one after another. square cabin. In fact, this will cause great hidden dangers, because as far as I know, many people who live close to the transfer station are walking home, and there is no so-called closed-loop transfer at all. In addition to these people, many new patients can be seen queuing up every day.

On the afternoon of April 15th, I finally received a text message that I was released from the hospital. On April 16th, the 11th day of the diagnosis, and the 6th day of living in the cabin, I dragged a suitcase and a bag and walked from Minhang Longzhimeng to No. 25, Shuiqing Road, and rode for another 40 minutes. Shared bicycles and went home alone.

 Erso: There is no answer to all doubts,
just leave me to chew alone

1

unreachable call

My experience during the epidemic was very tortuous, which can be roughly divided into two stages before and after contracting the new crown. In March, there was a close connection at the school, and we started to escape from the school to go home. At that time, we first felt that the order of life and the original rules began to be broken. However, at home, I felt that the new crown was quite far away from us, although our community has been under lockdown since March 13. It’s just that more and more people were diagnosed. From the beginning of the “Shanghai Release”, the distant and vague numbers gradually became friends who were diagnosed with the disease. When I found out that I was diagnosed at the end of March, I felt that the sense of control of life was slowly losing. After the diagnosis, my life rhythm was directly disrupted by the sudden change. Every day, I didn’t know what I would do in the next hour. I felt dominated by the phone. Someone would call me at any time to tell me what to do, but the instructions were not clear. , I don't know what I'm going to do to protect my family under the same roof before I'm waiting to be sent to the shelter. The culture and propaganda isolate knowledge, the implementation of docking and transshipment of various departments is not in place, everything is chaotic, and every day I feel that I may have no fixed place to live in the next second.

I remember the nucleic acid test on the afternoon of the 29th, and my result was negative. But on the morning of the 30th, I started to cough, and I was very uncomfortable. I was sleeping all the time. That night, I had a fever of 38.7°C. At that time, I felt that something was wrong, and I started to feel a little scared. I wanted to test myself for nucleic acid, but I couldn't buy an antigen test kit. I only had two shots of the vaccine a year ago, and I was also very unwell. The long-term disruption of my life and the impact of depression made me panic. So I started to contact the neighborhood committee, but they couldn't get through. I thought maybe it was because they got off work too late, so I planned to continue calling tomorrow morning.

At 8:00 a.m. on the 31st, I continued to call the emergency contact number of the neighborhood committee, and found that I still could not get through. Considering that if I got infected and went out, it would affect others, so I had to ask my dad to go to the neighborhood committee to find them in person and ask them how to deal with it. , and took back the antigen test kit. At that time, I noticed that the landline receiver of the neighborhood committee was buckled on the table, and it always showed that the busy line could not be connected, but in fact, no one from the neighborhood committee was answering the phone, which means that they turned the phone into the do not disturb mode. , deliberately not answering calls from residents. My dad didn't expose it, just asked how to contact the neighborhood committee in the future. They say "we will contact you, only we contact you, you don't contact us."

I think this is really ridiculous. If I live alone, I can't even contact the neighborhood committee by phone when I suspect I'm infected. Go to the neighborhood committee to get the antigen test kit. At the beginning, when I was watching the news, I also accused me, how come some people are positive and don’t know how to stay at home and go to the neighborhood committee to infect more people? Now that I think about it, if I live alone and meet such neighborhood committee members, I can only go to them with the antigen of two bars.

A few hours later, the neighborhood committee called in to ask about my situation. After I told them that the antigen self-test was positive, the neighborhood committee asked me to wait for the call from the CDC, saying that someone would report it, and I would wait for the result of the CDC’s on-site review. , then my whole mental state exploded. However, when it comes to waiting for disease control, I now feel that there are many problems.

On the day of the diagnosis on the 31st, the disease control department came to do nucleic acid for my neighbor near dinner, and then we asked him, since everyone came to our floor, can you help me with nucleic acid sampling by the way, anyway, I have already reported it. But I don't know how their process went. They said that they could not do nucleic acid for me without notice. The whole process is very rigid. If you reflect any questions, or propose to streamline steps to improve the unreasonable situation, the answer you get is "can't be reported to your superiors". Of course, I think this is also excusable. It may be that there were not enough people at the beginning, and the situation was more chaotic.

By April 1st, my mother started to have a fever. In fact, we took certain isolation measures at the time. I stayed in the room, and there was a chair at the door. My family would put food on that chair, and my family and I used different bathrooms. I would also spray on the places I passed by. Disinfectant spray. But in the end, there is a corridor that we must go through, and our action trajectories will overlap to a certain extent, so it is impossible to completely block the spread of the virus.

The CDC came to review me that night. Before that, the CDC had actually come to the community many times, but no one came to do nucleic acid for me the first few times. Things got even messier later. They called me to tell me that I was diagnosed, and they set up a cordon in front of my house. Other than that, there were no measures. What precautions can family members have?

2

infinite death loop

During that time, the testing policy seemed to be changing every day. Generally speaking, it was about once every two days for an antigen and a nucleic acid. However, all the households on our floor are either infected or in close contact. All of them cannot participate in the collective nucleic acid. They can only complete the antigen at home and transmit it to the system, but this is of no use, because the system said that the positive should be reported to the neighborhood committee. It's impossible to get through from beginning to end, and it seems to be stuck in an unsolvable dead circle.

I was very worried about my family at that time, because my grandfather was 85 or 86 years old and had lung cancer before. Even if he was cured, he would still have some concerns. So I was particularly afraid of involving them, so I hoped that I would be transported away as soon as possible. But then my family members were still infected before April 5th, without waiting for further notice from the CDC to transfer me. Although it seems that we are all asymptomatic infected people, my symptoms are more severe than theirs. , still coughing today.

The problem here is that my family has shown abnormal mixed tests since April 1, and later self-tested positive for antigens, but no one has ever been responsible, let alone someone to review the nucleic acid. And theoretically, the abnormal health code of mixed detection will turn red, but their health code is yellow, that is, they are counted as my close connection, and the problem of abnormal mixed detection is ignored.

One day, a "big white" shouted downstairs, "everyone go down to do nucleic acid". At that time, my family had not done nucleic acid for a long time due to abnormal mixed test. We shouted from the air, asking whether nucleic acid should be done for abnormal nucleic acid mixed test? A confirmed old man living alone next door asked, does he also want to do nucleic acid like this? The "Dabai" downstairs said that everyone should go, so a group of people who should be blocked in our entire building went to the nucleic acid point in our community center. I thought this was very problematic, so I kept asking the "Dabai" downstairs why the residents who were diagnosed and had abnormal mixed tests had to do nucleic acid tests together, but he just repeated that everyone should go. I slowed down and asked him if he could check with his superiors again, and he just said "I can't contact my superiors". In fact, many people I asked and made many phone calls throughout the epidemic gave me the feeling that they had no way to contact their superiors. Maybe they were really unable to report the problems they encountered. In short, the response channels were very fragmented. The information is very opaque and the communication efficiency is extremely low.

At this moment, the grandfather next door was driven back, saying that the staff there would not allow the confirmed people to do nucleic acid testing together, but the "Dabai" downstairs was still saying "everyone do nucleic acid testing".

In desperation, we could only make a personal phone call from a staff member of the neighborhood committee and asked him what the situation was. He said, "It is impossible for such a thing to happen. How could Yanglou, who has been diagnosed, ask you to come down and do nucleic acid testing." But such a thing It happened right before our eyes. He said that he could not give any answer here, but just insisted that "this thing is impossible to happen". He is obviously escaping from reality, unwilling to admit and refusing to communicate, so how can we optimize control and reduce the recurrence of repeated events? I continued to ask him when my parents would be able to wait for a review of the abnormal situation, and he said there will be, and it will come tomorrow; I continued to repeat this sentence the next day, there will be, and it will come tomorrow, But to this day it still hasn't come.

As a result, the repeated events reappeared a few days later. That time, the grandfather next door was called down to do the nucleic acid test without knowing it. He emphasized that he was an infected person, and it was probably because the positive list was missed. As a result, the next day, my grandfather was scolded by the neighborhood committee and said, "Why did you come for a mixed test? Don't you know that you have been diagnosed?" Of course, the grandfather was very angry, and said, "Is it what I want to do? Can I not do it? Didn't you do it like this?"

I was also blamed inexplicably for misunderstandings caused by poor information. On the 6th, the CDC finally called me the first call after the diagnosis and said that I needed to go to the centralized isolation point on the 7th or 8th. As a result, on the 8th, I received a call to ask why I didn’t go to the centralized isolation point. I'm just wondering, no one came to pick me up, where can I go? Does it make sense to call me? Is it unclear that you didn't arrange for someone to pick me up? At that time, the staff said that they made a lot of calls to ask why they did not go to the centralized isolation point, and it was unclear why no one answered them, but in short, no matter what the situation was, their duty was only to do information registration, and nothing else. arrive. On the one hand, there is a rigid "specialized person for special work", and on the other hand, the information is extremely illiquid.

3

Life is like countless blind boxes

However, on the 7th, our neighborhood committee finally stood up and formed a corridor group. In the next two days, the phone call of the neighborhood committee also got through, and some volunteers came to check the results of the self-test. Later, on the 8th, I tested the antigen again and it turned negative, and the test on the 9th was also negative. After responding to the volunteers in the building, someone from the disease control department came to me for a nucleic acid conversion review that night. He said that the negative review only needs to be done once, which seems to mean that as long as the test is negative this time, I don't have to go to the cabin, and I hope to get on the right track of life. But he didn't say it clearly, and every word he said left me elusive.

It's like a metaphor for my daily life after the epidemic. I don't know if I will be transferred, where, and when will I be transferred. I felt that I didn’t want to leave because of the conditions; some relatives grabbed quilts from others at the centralized isolation point, and some friends stayed in hotels there. Life is like an infinite number of blind boxes. I used to be anxious every day, calling countless people countless times, it was so confusing, I don’t even remember who I contacted.

However, on the 11th, the review results informed our family that all nucleic acids were positive. After that, we entered the long and chaotic cycle again. Even though the antigen self-tests were negative every day, we were still waiting endlessly. On the 15th, our family received seven or eight calls, from the disease control, the neighborhood committee, and the police station. Everyone called in and they said the same things over and over again: First, they asked about the situation of the elderly at home, One is to tell us that we will be transferred, and then ask us whether we have been transferred. At the beginning, the CDC asked us if we had any needs. We said that it would be best if the whole family could be transported to an isolation point at the same time. After a while, the CDC called to ask if we had been transported. After a while, it was the neighborhood committee’s turn. I called and said that I would pick up my father and grandpa right away. In the early morning, I received a call from the disease control and asked if my mother had been transported away. This is ridiculous, CDC sent people to pick us up, and they don't know if we have been transferred.

I didn't understand the situation, and I didn't know whether I should go into quarantine or not, when would I go into quarantine, all my doubts were unanswered, and I was left to chew on my own.

4

Silent island after diagnosis

During this period of lockdown, material supply was also a problem. The community was closed before the outbreak of the epidemic, and it didn’t take long after that to be diagnosed and unable to be transported out. At that time, the guards would specially arrange people to deliver meals to the confirmed people. There are many elderly people in our community, surrounded by hospitals, and rented a lot of family members of patients who accompany them in the hospital for a long time. I remember a family living with an elderly couple, one of whom was suffering from pancreatic cancer. They were not very good at using WeChat or shopping online. At the beginning of the lockdown, they encountered a shortage of supplies. They went to the neighborhood committee to ask how they could buy food. The solution given by the neighborhood committee was to issue a pass for them to go out to buy food and then come back. But there are so many elderly people in our community. If we all use the channel of issuing entry and exit cards, wouldn't the closure and control become a formality? The neighborhood committee is just evading the responsibility of taking care of the elderly residents' needs for security materials.

Later, the control became stricter, and the two old people went to the neighborhood committee again. They said that it was okay to report that they had not eaten, and they could continue to issue the pass. Even if they bought food, they could not return to the community. The two elderly people rented here temporarily, and they had no neighbor relationship to contact. Later, they could only contact volunteers for help. During that time, my mother was volunteering to help organize nucleic acid work, and they came to my mother for help. We can only find someone to help out with the purchase, and then bring it in for them. Such elderly people are not a minority in our community, and many of these food shortages are volunteered to help solve them in private names.

At that time, Puxi was not yet closed, and I could still order a lot of takeaways, and I didn’t think the food was rare, but I didn’t expect that my family would be completely out of food after the closure.

The Dingdong and Hema stores near our home were closed from the beginning, and the supplies were distributed only once, which was not enough to eat for a few days, so we could only rely on group purchases. In today's society, there are not many connections between neighbors. To enter group buying, you must first have a group before you can have more information resources. But precisely this first step is difficult to break if there are not too many social relationships, especially the elderly group, and there are many tenants, it is difficult to take this step from zero to one, we have never built a group of owners , The channel of this group buying has not been established.

One time, the neighborhood committee distributed a household of supplies. I don’t know if anyone didn’t get it. In short, after a few hours, there were still six or seven extra copies at the door. However, no one went to follow-up and contacted whether the excess materials should be distributed to those in need, such as the elderly who may not have any food, or the tenants who rented in groups. Instead, they let the extra materials hang at the door. . My mother reported this problem in the volunteer group, and it turned out that she was kicked out of the volunteer group chat. I don’t know if it was because everyone found that she was abnormally detected and could no longer participate in volunteer work. The supplies disappeared late the next day, and it is unknown if they eventually reached those who needed them.

For a period of time after my diagnosis, our family really had no rice to eat, no channel to report, no one could be contacted, and no one came to help us with this matter. In desperation, I contacted my boyfriend's mother, a medical staff member, who managed to deliver a box of food to the shelves at the door of our community. We are in a closed building. In theory, we can't go out from the building, but we can't even eat food. We can only wait until the dead of night when no one is there.

That day, we saw a piece of paper hanging alone at the gate of the community. It was the QR code of the group, and we finally added it in. But before that, we seemed to be completely forgotten by the community, and we were sealed in the building and tried our best to send some rice. No one told us when the group buying group was formed, no one told us what to wait for, what to do, no one asked if we needed food, as if we became an island of silence after the diagnosis.

5

in an uncontrollable life

It's good to be alive

The food supply situation has improved for a while after the establishment of the group in our building. You can buy some things in a group. The official neighborhood committee will also sell some group dishes at a relatively reasonable price, so that an apple and a small box of milk will not cost 10 yuan. Outrageous prices for the class. There are also volunteers who specially connect with the elderly and help them solve the problem of purchasing some supplies.

However, just a few days after the group purchase started, on the 12th, the community began to restrict group purchases organized by residents. Probably out of the consideration of reducing the flow of people, limiting the spread of the epidemic and cross-infection, an official group purchase and distribution of materials were arranged. . However, the quantity and types of materials allocated by the government have not kept up at all. At present, there are only vegetables, and residents still need to work hard to get them.

Another worry is the problem of dispensing medicine during the epidemic. There is a WeChat group in our community with abnormal nucleic acid/antigen tests. There are many elderly people who are facing the dilemma of lack of commonly used medicines. It is difficult to dispense medicines under the epidemic, let alone confirmed patients. . Some elderly people need to dispense nine kinds of medicines at the same time, and insulin injections are not available in many places. The substitutability of various medicines, whether they are urgent, how many kinds of medicines can be dispensed at one time, and whether there are corresponding medicines in hospitals at all levels, all need to be considered. The problem is that the person who helps to dispense the medicine often has to run several times before it is possible to dispense all the medicine, and most of it is the medicine that cannot be dispensed. There are still many people who need psychotropic drugs, but they are afraid to seek help from the neighborhood committee because of their stigma and fear of being talked about, not to mention the fact that such drugs are difficult to obtain.

Fortunately, my depression is still stable, and the need for medication is not urgent for the time being. It's just that I cut off the medicine without permission before the epidemic, and I don't have any stock at home, and because of the recent experience, my condition has been repeated. And I can't dispense online without a prescription for two months, so I'm not sure if I can get the medicine sooner if I need it urgently. There are a lot of people in a situation like mine, and when that happens, what can we do.

6

farce in cry

On the evening of April 17, the doorbell was mixed with knocks. I finally left the house on the 19th day after I developed new crown symptoms and the 10th day when the self-test antigen was negative.

That night, we first received a call from a neighborhood committee, saying that we had already contacted the transfer related matters and wanted to pick up grandpa to Dahua Hospital. After a while, they called to pick up grandpa and father to the shelter tomorrow. They said they didn't know why the Dahua Hospital they contacted earlier didn't go, and they didn't know why my mother and I were not on the transfer list.

As a result, at 10 o'clock in the evening, the CDC suddenly called and said that the transfer car would pick us up immediately. We had too many doubts and confusions, but they just repeated the notification forcefully and mechanically.

"What about me and my mother?"

"Going too."

"But I called earlier and said it wasn't on the list?"

"Don't worry about the front, I'll let you know now that I'm leaving right away."

"Didn't you say before that grandpa went to Dahua Hospital?"

"I'll let you know now, go to the cabin immediately, and quickly pack up, the car will be here soon."

"But doesn't it mean tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, tomorrow, it will be tomorrow after twelve o'clock! I'm just telling you to go now, will you go?"

"Then how can it be done! The old man is already asleep, so he agreed to go to the hospital! Well, then it's ok if we don't go to the hospital, it's not because we don't want to cooperate, can we go during the day? Do you have to be in the early morning? I know you can't be busy, but the old man I really can't stand such a toss, and it's too late to clean up things!"

"The car is coming soon, can you leave?"

"...I really can't go."

Right now, right away, I've heard this word twice before, and I haven't waited for CDC, and this time they're here.

At half past ten, the doorbell rang, followed by a hurried and violent knock on the door. There were seven or eight people outside the door, and it seemed that some of them were police officers. If it weren't for today's Shanghai, I would have thought that our family had committed some criminal case and would have been arrested and brought to justice. Afterwards, the conversation was repeated fiercely, basically the same as the content on the phone, with red cheeks and spittle. Under our tough attitude, they finally loosened a small hole and made an exception to take care of the elderly. They could not leave tonight, and Dad could stay to take care of Grandpa. I was a little relieved and got into the car with my mother.

The old man is old, and every time he steps out of the house, he is very cautious. I remember when my grandmother went to the hospital, I was worried that the fifteen-hour drive would bring severe discomfort and aggravate the condition. The funny thing is that sometimes there is even a glimmer of happiness. Grandma passed away a few months ago. She tried her best to treat her, and she doesn't have to face Shanghai today with basic diseases. The harsh reality pushed forward without hesitation, but the news was full of orderly peace. I often envy my grandfather for not being able to surf the Internet, so I don't have to face the naked truth.

At eleven o'clock, after waiting at the gate of the community for half an hour, the transfer truck finally arrived. The old uncle next to him said that he had been standing and waiting for an hour. There were already many people in the car. The long wait has just begun, and the transfer bus stops and goes. After midnight, people kept asking for the toilet and drinking water, but they were rejected one by one. They just said stiffly, "We can't do anything about it." In the early morning, there were still a large number of elderly people in their 70s and 80s sitting on the bus seats. They may not be able to sit for that long, let alone in such a difficult environment. The grandfather in his 90s hummed intermittently, as if his body was on the verge of falling apart.

The uninfected grandmother came to accompany the uninfected wife; the uninfected father came to accompany the young daughter. They did not care about the infection, but were worried that their family members could not take care of themselves and no one took care of them in the shelter. And there are not a few people who have been infected for nearly 20 days like me. The situation of the elderly is very similar to that of my grandfather. The neighborhood committee called not long ago to say that they had been contacted to go to the hospital, but without exception, they were all told by phone to go to the shelter at around seven or eight today. The grandfather in his 90s who was bedridden all the time was even carried into the car by two people.

In this way, the transfer vehicle remained at a stalemate from 11:00 to 1:30 in the morning at a distance of only 100 meters from the community. Everyone's patience finally reached the limit, and they began to ask the staff what they were waiting for and why they couldn't leave first. At that time, the old man's physical condition was already very worrying. Unsurprisingly, the "big white" under the car, like many of the staff I had communicated with before, told us that it was not his decision, he had urged it, and there was nothing else he could do.

After another quarter of an hour, the 90-year-old grandfather couldn't help moaning in pain in the car. The car was noisy, and everyone's dissatisfaction had accumulated to the peak:

"I tell you, comrade, there are elderly people in their nineties in the car today. There will be no problem if you let the car go first."

"I am a positive patient. There are many very serious patients in our car, those with breathing difficulties, and elderly people in their 90s who seem to have cerebral infarction. They are usually paralyzed in bed, but after waiting for three hours, The car is still at the gate of the community..."

"People at the scene, people at the scene don't care!"

"Then let's wait to die? Yes, he said he didn't care, so I called you! You have many leaders around you. Tell me who your leader is, and I'll call your leader."

"We just want to leave now and go to the cabin, isn't that normal?"

"The car is still parked here, and the old man in the car is shaking!"

In the face of everyone's complaints, the staff can only repeat, "I don't know. I don't have a leader's phone number, I'm just a third-party service worker. I've already done it at six in the morning. Who am I looking for? I'm a volunteer. Whoever you want, give it to whoever you want, I don't know."

In the chaos, I don't know where the crying came from the car... I want to cry too. If it weren't for our firm refusal and "resistance", my 86-year-old grandfather would already be in this car, and would have to be pulled up from his sleep in the middle of the night and sit three or four times in the stuffy carriage. Hours, sitting until the whole body is sore and even the legs and feet are numb, waiting for the indefinite departure. I was wearing a mask tightly, but I felt a little bit out of breath, and felt nauseous and retched for a while.

7

"People" in the epidemic?

At 2:30 in the morning, we were on the bus at the gate of the community. We didn't wait for the patient to be transferred who had not arrived on the list. Instead, we waited for the ambulance. The driver got off, and he was alone in the car, without medical care. Maybe waiting for some file, the driver chatted with us and asked us to think about it. The night before, he received two patients, both of them asked by hospitals, but no one was willing to accept them. In the end, the patients couldn't take it anymore and would rather go home and drive them back in an ambulance. He said that there are relevant documents and certificates, and the leaders said that they have been contacted, but in the end, they still could not enter the hospital. At that time, the leader informed the driver that the old man in his 90s was in a coma. But there wasn't even a single paramedic on board, perhaps because it was a "positive ambulance". And those who are not infected, can't seem to wait for an ambulance at all. "Ambulances don't save people at all now!" said the ambulance driver.

On the one hand, it was the ambulance driver's persuasion, "It's time to wait, why don't you go to the square cabin, you ask me, I can't guarantee that you can go to the hospital." Well, what are you worried about?", the old man's nanny called the old man's family repeatedly. But it also seems to be an unsolved situation. In the case of incomplete information, no one knows what this choice will lead to. Maybe the old man can't stand it on the way to the square cabin, maybe the old man can't get into the hospital, and the neighborhood committee won't let him go back to the community.

At three o'clock, the last patient we were waiting for to be transported had quietly got into the car in a panic. Everyone advises the old man. If he is not allowed to enter the hospital, he should not get off in the ambulance and wait for someone to solve it. There is no other way. Three people lifted the old man off the bus, got into the ambulance and went away. We also finally set off. There were a lot of stops on the road, and it took two hours to get from Xuhui to Fengxian's cabin on an empty road. Usually, the road is full of trucks in the early morning, and this part of the road may not take an hour.

Finally at five in the morning, we arrived at the square cabin. At this time, some people have been sitting in the car for seven hours, and no one mentions that they have not been to the bathroom or drink water after the exhaustion of the boat all night. No one spoke, just went through the check-in process mechanically, and quickly made the bed and fell asleep with good things.

After a night of tossing, when I was called up to eat at noon, I was exhausted, my heart was pounding, and my head was dizzy and painful. After eating lunch, I went back to sleep, and it didn't get better until I got up again for dinner. As an antigen, I have long since turned negative. This is true of young people who are alive and well, not to mention the old people. I don’t know if the 90-year-old old man was finally accepted by the hospital... In his sleep, he seemed to hear a quarrel. , the headlights of the cabin were turned on, and I was woken up. Someone came to take the person who needed oxygen to the hospital, but that person only needed oxygen three days ago in a state of emergency. No one cared about him at that time. Now he has survived, and the nucleic acid has also turned negative. When he was about to leave the cabin, someone was going to take him to the hospital.

On the 21st, I had tested negative for nucleic acid twice in the Fangcang cabin. In theory, I could be discharged from the hospital and go home. I thought this farce could end here, but I was notified that my two nucleic acid tests were less than 24 hours old. , just 20 minutes away. Many people are like this. They were told that the time difference between the two negative tests was 10 minutes or 20 minutes, so we were not allowed to leave the cabin. If you test the nucleic acid again, you have to wait for the results, wait for the manual statistics to report, and wait for the superior to reply and arrange a transfer vehicle.

It was a circle of unnecessary and uncertain waiting again. People quarreled in the square cabin, and "Da Bai" cried.

We are all right, but who is to blame?

Text | Vinyl

Figure | Provided by interviewee

WeChat editor | Zhang Yuxuan

matters editor | Gigi

Around the Fire (ID:weilu_flame)

The pictures in the text are not used for other purposes without consent

You are welcome to comment below the article to exchange discussions with the Ios team and other readers

If you want to know about the fireplace and read more articles, please pay attention to this official account and click the corresponding menu column on the official account page