All Quiet on the Front Lines of the Beijing Zombie Apocalypse
Call me stupid and reckless, but i just could not resist the urge to go visit the Ditan Hospital compound to get a look at the front lines of Beijing’s Zombie Apocalypse. I live less than a kilometer from the complex and walked by its front gate yesterday; but the mystery of what might be going on inside drew me closer today.
In a nutshell, Beijing's premiere infectious disease hospital does not appear to be having any trouble whatsoever in handling current patient volume:
That is, may I state for the record, the main entrance to the contagious disease clinic for one of the biggest hospitals in Beijing certified to treat novel coronavirus patients – only one of 20 city-wide, and only one of three that has city-level certification (that, my friend, means they are one of the big boys).
Ditan is the hospital that was one of the front lines for SARS treatment and also handled the two cases of the plague that were reported in November.
At close to high noon Tuesday, there was no queue, no crowd, no traffic, no orderlies dressed in hazmat suits with stun guns beating back the infected masses. All was quiet on this front line.
In fact, it was so quiet that I had to double check several times with my colleagues: are you sure there isn't a different branch of this hospital? Are you sure I am in the right place? After double checking multiple times, I discovered that yes, I was indeed in the right place.
The picture at the top of this article represents about as close I ever got to the front door for the duration of my walk (which lasted all of about 10 minutes). I was well protected with my mask and managed to avoid touching my face. I did not come within about 10 meters of any person, from the time I walked in the north entrance of the hospital complex until exiting on the east. Upon returning home I washed up properly with the requisite "two Happy Birthdays" method of washing my hands. I chucked my mask in the dumpster outside before returning home just to be on the safe side.
So what does this all tell us? First of all, this is a subjective experience. I have no idea what it's like at the other 19 hospitals right now. But to me this says: contrary to what some people may be imagining (in Beijing as well as abroad), Beijing is currently nowhere near capacity in its ability to treat and quarantine patients that may come down with this strain of coronavirus.
In a Jan 31 article in the Beijing News, Wang Linghang, Director of the Emergency Department of Infectious Diseases at Ditan, said they were seeing about 160-170 people with a fever each day, and the staffing of the hospital is sufficient to handle the current caseload. Given Beijing's total number of confirmed cases currently stands at just over 200, it's not a surprise.
Nevertheless, Ditan appears to be making advanced preparations just in case the caseload gets heavier in coming days or weeks. A fleet of construction vehicles and a small crowd of construction workers are busy building what appears to be temporary housing on an empty lot just to the west side of the hospital (though this could be simply a coincidence).
If it is an expansion, this is a good thing – it means Beijing is doing its best to prepare for any scenario it might face in its attempt to control the spread of this virus – which, I might point out, seems increasingly to be not a particularly deadly strain of coronavirus.
Beijing is also in the process of rebuilding the Xiaotangshan Hospital, one of the other major hospitals from the SARS era that had been mothballed several years ago.
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Images: Michael Wester
