According to the report of the Korean Central Anti-epidemic on February 25, the total number of confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in South Korea reached 977, with 11 deaths.
In less than a week, the new crown epidemic broke out in South Korea.
In Daegu City, where the epidemic is the most severe,
local people lined up to buy masks. Looking back 5 years ago, from May to July 2015,
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) swept South Korea. There were 186 confirmed cases of
, resulting in 38 deaths. At one time,
forced thousands of middle schools and primary schools to close down.
Korean writer Kim Jung-hwan created a documentary novel
with the background of the victims of MERS. In all circles concerned about the number of confirmed diagnoses, mortality,
economic impact, and panic,
Korean writer Kim Yeong-hwan saw one after another helpless patients without names, z3 , Dare not reveal his identity, only the serial number left by
:
patient No.1, patient No.2...
so he took the real life of MERS patients as the source,
created the documentary novel
"I want to live: in the storm of MERS" People "
" I have always firmly believed that literature should stand on the side of the poor, disadvantaged and injured at
.
is not only literature, but every one of us should be like this."
In early January this year, the Chinese translation of the book was published,
An exclusive interview with writer Jin Xuanhuan,
, from MERS to new crown virus pneumonia,
, what happened to every ordinary person?
self-reported by Kim Jung-hwan Editor Bai Wenping
Kim Jung-hwan cares about social issues, and by writing as a weak voice, the Korean writer Kim Jung-hwan created a new situation in 1968. He is good at creating documentary novels based on real characters in society. He was created twice based on the "2014 South Korean Seyue Shipwreck Incident", and many novels such as "The Immortal Yi Sun-sin" and "Hwang Jinyi" have been transformed into film and television dramas.
In 2016, he began to prepare the novel "I Want to Live: People in the Storm of MERS" with the background of MERS victims. In addition to collecting massive amounts of information and checking news reports, we also visited patients, family members, and medical care who experienced MERS in the past, restoring their plight, the social atmosphere at the time, and reflecting on who should be responsible in the novel?
In January 2020, when the Chinese translation of "I Want to Live: People in the MERS Storm" was published, it encountered the global spread of the new crown pneumonia virus. The writer Jin Xuanhuan originally planned to accept an interview with the team when he attended the Taipei Book Fair on February 7th. Unexpectedly, the book fair was postponed due to the epidemic, so we used email to interview Jin Xuanhuan instead.
From MERS in 2015 to new crown pneumonia in 2020, has society done better in the face of the epidemic?
The following is Jin Xuanhuan's narrative.
Picture source: KIM HONG-JI/REUTERS
The infectious disease is over, but life continues.
I want to write the MERS incident as a novel, in the late spring of 2016. It has been a year since May 2015 that an infectious disease called "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome" swept the Korean Peninsula. Many MERS victims did not want to be interviewed. I finally contacted a few people. They cried aggrievedly about how MERS ruined their lives, but they still did not want to meet with reporters.
They said that if netizens want Rousou, there is nothing they can hide-no one wants to be labeled as a MERS patient again.
I re-watched the 2015 MERS-related news and TV shows. There are countless content related to medical staff in the government, local government and hospitals, but there are very few reports on MERS victims. Even if there is, the content is mostly what happened after being admitted to the isolation ward after being coded in the order of diagnosis.
themAs free individuals and members of a social community, they have not reported the past, present and future of these people.
is a biography of the victims:
hope they will be remembered as individual lives
so I started to write the stories of the victims. Before saying "will not forget, will remember forever", we need to know what we should remember, and we must find "people" instead of "numbers." In the first few months of
, I was also very worried about not being able to pick up a pen to write this novel, because during the process of collecting materials, there was no scene that formed the structure of the novel in my mind. Wanting to write and being able to write are two different things. Just when I decided to give up, I met someone who rekindled the fire. With the help of many people, I met with the victim.
I am very grateful to those who met and failed to meet with me. So far, there has not been a formal group of MERS victims. I can understand their complex feelings and the reality they face. People are narrowly divided into normal and abnormal, and those who are divided into abnormal are labelled and disgusted again and again.
Because of this, I find it difficult to directly use realistic characters, events and backgrounds to create documentary literature. Although I have changed the settings of these people I have seen, I still hope to write about their pains, sometimes sighs, sometimes tears, sometimes screams, sometimes struggles, sometimes silent pain!
I stared at them for a long time, listened to them, looked up information and conducted field trips together. This process makes people feel sad, "If this is not hell, where is hell?" "That hell is still going on now"... These words and sighs deeply hurt my heart.
Picture source: AP
Those "infected with MERS",
and the unbearable life
The huge, cold walls are exposed.
The country and hospitals do not recognize mistakes. Because they do not recognize them, there is no compensation or compensation. This method is cruel to people who have lost everything due to infectious diseases. The vast majority of victims do not have professional medical knowledge. Many have never been to court in their entire lives and have no knowledge of the law.
pours out the aggrieved recovered patients and survivors, do not remember what kind of treatment they received in the isolation ward, when the patient's condition began to deteriorate or the degree of deterioration. They only remember that a person had been struggling with death in just ten days and half a month, but the process was not clear, which made them fall into deep despair.
Life and death cannot be left to luck. It is too shallow and stupid to think that I am "lucky" just because I am not infected, and because I didn't take that boat. Moreover, it is not the meaning of community not to extend a helping hand to those who are in dire straits, but to reject them. The
movies "Saving Private Ryan" and "Martian Rescue" touched people's hearts precisely because the social community did not give up the individual, and did not use the economic loss and the probability of success to measure the value of persistence.
We did not protect the victims, no one stopped the criticism of the quarantine, and even tried to turn the victims into perpetrators. The term "super communicator" is a typical representative. In the face of a sudden infectious disease, the victims are already powerless just to overcome the disease, and those rumors have wounded them all.
We have not launched a "social safety net" either. The society has not done its utmost to help the survivors of their loved ones and the patients who were barely recovered due to MERS. No one explained to them why their beloved would be infected with MERS and leave the world, and there is no policy to help those who are forced to lose their jobs. People who are not actively treating their psychological trauma.
They look forward to returning to normal life after recovery, but "infected with MERS" ruined their long life in the future, and they couldn't bear to watch.
fall day after day, fall and fall again! But no matter where it is, there is no net that can stop the fall.
from MERS toNew crown virus:
I firmly believe that literature should stand on the side of the weak and injured
On September 8, 2018, South Korea once again confirmed patients with MERS. Although
anticipated that this infectious disease would reappear, I didn’t expect it to reappear three years later when I was reviewing this novel. Fortunately, this initial response and prevention was very successful. After the news of
was broadcast that day, I received a call from a previous MERS victim. They sobbed and asked me, why the prevention and treatment can be successful now, but it failed three years ago? If the name of the hospital were disclosed immediately like this time, there would be no loss of loved ones. The "failure" of
prevention and treatment has caused many deaths and injuries, and these injured people are reporting to the state and hospitals. They had to leave their original home, move to a strange place, and go to psychotherapy at their own expense. Although these people have different appearances in life, they are all still living in pain. We cannot treat this incident as a personal misfortune. Although in 2015, we did not pay attention to those suffering in the dark abyss, but at least we should care and embrace them now.
Jin Xuanhuan has been keeping in touch with the MERS patients he visited
Since the first novel was published 22 years ago, I have always believed that literature should stand on the side of the poor, disadvantaged and injured.
is not only literature, but also the social community. We who belong to the community should be like this. We should not just forget and stay away, we should listen to and comfort people who have been hurt by MERS. Guard those people who want to shout "I want to live" but are forced to be silent and full of fear.
Picture source: ED JONES/GETTY IMAGES
And this time, at this moment, the new coronavirus has invaded the world, including South Korea. Earlier I saw the news that South Korean people launched an appeal for "banning the entry of Chinese people" because of the epidemic. Ignorance will amplify fear, and the amplified fear will extend to hatred. We shouldn't blame the infected people, the infected regions, and the infected countries with this hatred. The most important thing at the moment is that countries must share information in a timely manner, use the shared information as a basis to grasp the situation, and take timely and effective responses.
I also believe that the current South Korean government is doing its utmost to take preventive measures against the new coronavirus in order not to repeat the same mistakes.
Picture source: AHN YOUNG-JOON/AP
At 11 am on May 20, 2015, at W Hospital in Gyeonggi-do, Seoul, three epidemiological investigators arrived on the eighth floor. They put on C-level protective equipment and walked into the ward in order. The epidemiological investigation was regarded as confidential. The
investigator wore double-layered gloves inside and outside, and carefully inspected the hospital bed, window frames, and ceiling. Not even a single hair was let go. Everything was put in a plastic bag and sealed. At this time, just a ray of sunlight came in, making the white hood, yellow protective clothing and blue apron set off more vividly. This dress is not popular anywhere on this earth.
-This is the beginning of the documentary novel "I Want to Live: People in the Storm of MERS". After the appearance of the Korean "No. 1" MERS patient in 2015, his ward was investigated.
Picture source: AP
In 2015, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome MERS, the virus spread from the Middle East to the world, South Korea became the country with the fastest infection rate in the world outside of Saudi Arabia. Between May and July of this year, South Korea had a total of 186 confirmed cases and 38 deaths, with a death rate exceeding 20%.
Covering up real information seems to be the beginning of all outbreaks.
In fact, although the first case of MERS in South Korea was diagnosed on May 20, as early as May 12, this "patient No. 1" was treated in three hospitals. It was not until the fourth hospital. It was discovered that he had been to Bahrain in the Middle East and was a highly suspected case of MERS. The hospital immediately notified it, but the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refused to confirm the diagnosis, so the patient was placed on hold for another 36 hours. On May 27, the virus was transmitted to 14 people who were in the emergency room at the time, and the epidemic began.Spread...
Jin Xuanhuan started with the hospital. The three protagonists in the novel are among the 14 people who were infected with MERS in the emergency room: Jin Shizhu, a dentist who had recovered from lymphoma, and Li Yihua, a trainee reporter who sent away his late-cancerous father. , Ji Donghua, a bookstore administrator who carried an economy. Three people were diagnosed with MERS, and their lives changed.
passed the illness to relatives without knowing it,
am I the perpetrator?
Li Yihua has just graduated from university and works as an intern reporter at the news station. On May 27, she accompanied her father, who was in the terminal stage of cancer, to the emergency room. Her father could not survive this emergency and passed away on the same day. She did not know that she had contracted MERS in the process.
"Some important moments can determine life, but we rarely have the opportunity to know those moments early." On May 28-30, at father's three-day funeral, almost all relatives came, and the whole family gathered Comfort each other together. After returning home,
slept until late on the 31st. In the past five months as an intern reporter, I have been working fast, running all day and night, and I haven't had a good rest. When she got up, she felt that her earlobe was hot, as if she had a low fever, and her head was dizzy. Until June 4, I had a high fever and cough until early morning.
On June 1, some senior reporters received information that needs to be kept confidential: It is said that among the patients who visited the emergency room of F Hospital from May 27 to 29, some were diagnosed with MERS on May 30. And until the morning of June 4, reporters received press releases from the government in their mailboxes: It really is MERS. A colleague of
reacted to Yihua’s situation: “It’s more important to save people than an interview!” At 11pm on the 4th, an ambulance took Yihua from home to the hospital. He tested positive on the 6th and 7th. Hua was diagnosed with MERS.
Fortunately, Yihua was young and strong, and was discharged from the hospital within two weeks. Only then did she know that at the funeral, four relatives and elders had been infected with MERS because of themselves, and the uncle had passed away unfortunately. She fell into deep self-blame, "Is it wrong for the family to live in harmony?"
In the media report, Yihua saw a line of commentary "These victims, because they are infected with the virus, helplessly become the perpetrators." "The patients with strong infectious power are also called "super spreaders." She couldn't bear the heartache: how could the victim and the perpetrator be distinguished so easily? So am I the perpetrator? Shouldn't we first think about the rigid system of hospitals that infect patients and spread the virus? "
, after healed and discharged from the hospital, why did he seem to be abandoned by the world?
was in the emergency room that day, and Ji Donghua, who had worked in the publishing industry for 30 years.
, 50 years old, raised her son who went to university by herself, and had to take care of her. The 15-year-old sister carried the whole family's livelihood on one shoulder. Fortunately, she was the first patient transferred to the MERS ward to be transferred to the general ward in only 4 days.
originally thought that she could return to society after healed. Life is back on track, but I didn’t expect everything to be too naive. The reality is: the MERS label on her body can’t be removed. After being discharged from the hospital, she takes a bath four or five times a day, fearing that she will carry bad luck. Walking out of the house, neighbors who had known him for more than 10 years began to dodge. Image source: CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES
Donghua lost half of his lung function during the treatment process and lost 20 kg of weight. He could have carried 20 books on his back. But now I can’t help it. I accidentally coughed and my colleagues were all frightened. Because of her diagnosis, the company’s shipments have dropped drastically. Many publishers have asked for a change of warehouse because they feel dirty and dare not touch her. The book asked Donghua to resign. She endured her tears and explained to her boss: "I have recovered, and the doctor said there will be no relapse. "
boss said: "It's not that you want to die, it's that the company can live. "
is like this, Donghua was abandoned by the company and industry that had worked for 30 years. "People all over the world say I am dirty, how can I prove that I am clean? ”
Picture source: AHN YOUNG-JOON/AP
The last patient who was "erased":
who is responsible for the fragmented family?
Compared with Li Yihua and Ji Donghua, the situation of Jin Shizhu is more complicated.
37-year-old Shi Zhu works in a dentist's clinic. He lives happily with his wife Yingya and has a 5-year-old son. Among the three people in the emergency room on May 27, Jin Shizhu was the first to return to the hospital because he was a lymphoma patient. In the early morning of June 1, he went to the hospital for a follow-up cancer diagnosis. Unexpectedly, he also became the last MERS case.
had the underlying disease lymphoma, which caused his condition to repeat, and the virus test was negative and positive alternately. The other patients were discharged from the hospital within two weeks, and in the end, he was the only one left. According to the official "Daily News" released by
, after July 4, there have been no more confirmed patients for 23 days. On July 28, just like waiting for this day to arrive, the South Korean Prime Minister announced to the world: The MERS epidemic is over and South Korea is no longer an epidemic area. The picture comes from
.: CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES
At this time, Jin Shizhu is still alone, fighting in the ward. The wife in quarantine at home cannot see her husband. She is sad, angry, and helpless: "My husband is enduring hellish suffering for MERS. Life is better than death, but the government is anxious to erase the word MERS. Our family’s misfortune and Who will be responsible for the pain?"
was sent to the Jinshizhu in the negative pressure isolation ward again because of MERS, and the cancer was delayed in receiving treatment. All walks of life began to play football: hospitals pushed medical decisions to the government, and the government pushed them to the WHO (World Health Organization). The advice given by the WHO was unable to respond to immediate needs.
"I am locked in, walking on the edge of life and death, and the world is still functioning as usual. A person suffers and a person dies. Even if he dies, what is left is not my name, but the government-coded number 38. Patient'."
From June to November, after several repetitions, the Jinshizhu who thought "I want to live" couldn't hold it anymore.
"Golden Stone Pillar, death. The time of death is 3:06 on November 25."
edit postscript
It can be said that this is a reflection book of neighboring Korea.
misjudgment of the first patient, concealed the list of hospitals where the infection broke out, missed close contacts, neglected in-hospital protection, weak coordination among all parties in the medical system, and solved the problems with the victims instead of solving the problems... and after the epidemic, those patients What happened to the survivors and the patients who escaped? The experience of ordinary victims in the
epidemic storm and the price paid by individuals are what the author Jin Xuanhuan has been paying attention to, and it should be the concern of each of us.
They may not be great people and have not made much contribution, but such ordinary lives are most worthy of respect. Some pictures of
are provided by Times Publishing House
