Beijing medical assistance team leader recalls Wuhan experience

"None of us dared to pick up phone calls or have eye contact with our colleagues and families. We were afraid of bursting into tears over their worry before we set out for Wuhan on Feb 7," said Zhang Shuyang, leader of a medical assistance team sent to support the hardest-hit city in China, as she recalled their departure during a news conference on Tuesday.

As the Party secretary of Peking Union Medical College Hospital and leader of the hospital's medical assistance team, Zhang still remembers the scene when team members boarded on the plane to Wuhan.

"It was intensely quiet. Nobody talked and only the voice of a steward was heard on the plane. I was really sad at that moment and was doubtful about what we would encounter and if we could safely return," Zhang said.

The medics began training as soon as they arrived in Wuhan amid the height of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

"The training was different in Beijing than in Wuhan, where we felt like the air was filled with the virus. We were afraid to touch or sit anywhere," she said, adding that training and scientific prevention really mattered in that scenario.

Before medics rushed to the quarantine wards to help infected patients, a special group of doctors and nurses would check if their protective gear was on properly. "We were anxious, telling them to come back safely every time," Zhang said.

The weather in Wuhan was changeable during that period. Medical workers shivered when they took off the sweaty protective suits on some rainy and windy days, which made fever and cold common symptoms among team members, according to Zhang.

"'Are they infected with the virus?' was our biggest concern," she said, adding that colleagues from laboratory medicine were later sent to help them solve the problem by testing team members in a timely manner.

Zhang said that the biggest challenge for the team was the limited knowledge of this novel disease.

"To make an accurate and thorough understanding of it, every doctor and nurse in the team was urged to stay by the patients' beds as much as possible to observe their conditions, as well as responses to treatments," she said.