More than three years since the first COVID-19 infections occurred in the city of Wuhan, we look back at how some of China's most dedicated medical professionals faced down this unprecedented public health crisis. Guan Xiangdong is a leading ICU doctor who spent nearly two years on the road helping patients across the country, participating in 16 emergency support missions. He shares his lessons from the frontlines.

"There are no cars on this road."

GUAN XIANGDONG Director, Department of Critical Care Medicine The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University "It was February 2020 and Wuhan was already locked down. There was no one in the streets, and no cars on the roads. I arrived at the COVID response command center, and started hospital rounds the next day. I didn't really have any fears. I just thought maybe I could help. As a member of the national team of specialists, we had to visit five or six hospitals a day."

"I took this photo outside a district hospital. The lines outside their fever clinic actually contributed to the cluster outbreak at the time."

GUAN XIANGDONG Director, Department of Critical Care Medicine The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University "Before March 18, we were under a lot of stress. Aside from trying to save and treat patients, we had to manage our own staff being infected. But after that, we stopped receiving new cases. By April 8, Wuhan was once again experiencing traffic jams."

HUANG FEI Guangzhou "Wuhan was locked down very quickly and China subsequently implemented a series of very strict quarantine measures closing down cities and towns at times. Those measures drew a lot of criticism elsewhere in the world. As an ICU doctor seeing what you have seen, how do you assess China's COVID policies?"

GUAN XIANGDONG Director, Department of Critical Care Medicine The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University "I am an ICU doctor on the frontline. I know this first-hand. Some cities were closed because our country puts people's lives first. Otherwise we would've had mass outbreaks too early, like in Europe and the U.S. The result would have been unimaginable. Also, if we had opened up before Omicron, millions of people could have died."

"Did you do a CT to rule out a cerebral infarction?"

"Yes, he had a CT on the 15th."

"You must check again in 48 hours. This is about time."

"For patients suffering high fevers, we use cooling blankets. We try to reduce drugs or avoid them completely."

HUANG FEI Guangzhou "Three years on, looking back at what we've been through, at China's response to the pandemic overall, what was the lesson?"

GUAN XIANGDONG Director, Department of Critical Care Medicine The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University "We could have done better. The last three years have revealed some issues in our critical care. There are serious gaps among different regions and hospitals. Even though we had doctors and nurses coming together from across the country, treatment facilities were sometimes limited. We need to be better prepared, such as having good ICU infrastructure and strong medical expertise. Now we are training people for both 'peace time' and crisis scenarios, and I think we are heading in the right direction."

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報(bào)道鏈接：

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-03-21/VHJhbnNjcmlwdDcxMTYy/index.html

報(bào)道日期：2023-03-21