Plague

On an organised visit to Wuhan with other journalists and business representatives, Lianhe Zaobao’s Shanghai correspondent Chen Jing sees a city that appears to be humming away as if the Covid-19 disaster was nothing but a bad dream. Nevertheless, she gets an inkling that many stories of the pandemic are still waiting to be told. She resolves to tell them, all in good time.

Food delivered to the door every day, temperature taking twice a day, and not a single sound from the outside world... Zaobao correspondent Chen Jing documents 14 days in a hotel room, quarantined behind a yellow line. Did she find peace in solitude?

Professor Goh Chye Tee from Nanyang Technological University explains the treatment protocols recommended by the Chinese authorities in using traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) remedies in the treatment of Covid-19. He posits that one path to health can be a person-centric approach, where the focus lies on restoring balance in the body, rather than the virus that is making the attack.

In today’s age where it seems that all great literature has been written, Yan Lianke has a modest wish for aspiring writers in China. He hopes that they will have the space to create works, unfettered by thoughts of going against the grain. He believes that creating a culture that allows for dissenting voices in literature is far more important and desperately needed than creating a single or a few accidental great literary works.

Angry netizens suggest that Wuhan party secretary Wang Zhonglin’s call for gratitude for the CCP shows where officials’ allegiance truly lies. The testy mood of the public portends the zero tolerance of further grandstanding behaviour.

The current coronavirus outbreak is not the first epidemic in China. Photo collector and Taiwanese writer Hsu Chung-mao, looks at a plague outbreak in Manchuria over a century ago and the role played by a Malaya-born doctor and Nobel Prize nominee.