The mystery virus started here in the city of Wuhan
No word yet, from the World Health Organization
unless you've been living under a rock
you'll know that there's been an
outbreak of a new corona virus called the 2019 NCOV, I believe it's called
yeah 2019NCOV which originated in the city in a Chinese city called Wuhan
as of right now which is 22:56 on January the 22nd 2020 the virus has
infected 444 people and has killed 17 those are the official figures at the
current time for some context I've been living and working in Wuhan for almost
four years as a teacher and a photographer and I live here in this
apartment with my girlfriend Zhibek and she's a masters student in Wuhan University
So... we're sort of in the midst of this situation
This morning we booked a train to Hong Kong on Friday because we want to get
out of Wuhan at this time we're just gonna take it day by day for now and I
just wanted to film this experience because we just don't know what's going
to happen
if we don't we don't yeah?
right, well
04:22
on Thursday morning and
we've woken up to our phones buzzing the news is the government's gonna close off
the city so we're trying to leave before they do that which is at 10am so we've
got five and a half hours five and a half hours to get out don't even know if
we don't even know if the trains gonna be there
we don't know if the trains are running or not but we're gonna try
we'd don't wanna to be stuck here it could be a day it could be a week could be a
month, we want to get out
right it's 10 past 5:00 a.m. in the morning I've switched to the phone
because I put my camera away we are in the apartment still we're about to leave
check out all the stuff we're leaving behind all these clothes were leaving
the bags full boxes full books cameras equipment everything just there's a lot
of stuff we're just taking this suitcase, this suitcase, Zhibek's two bags and my
camera bag that's it
now we're just trying to wait for a taxi and see if we can get to the train station there seems to be a couple of people
doing what we're doing so I don't know what to say
we're trying our best were just trying our best
is that him?
no it's a truck
I don't understand how people are not wearing masks?
we got our ticket to Hong Kong
not much else to say really other than it’s seems very surreal doesn’t it?
a very surreal experience
Do you think it's gonna be empty?
oh, thank God!
[Cantonese]
Chinese New Year this weekend close to 7 million Chinese tourists traveled abroad
for the celebration last year more than 50 times that number traveled within the
country now the SARS pandemic in 2003 which spread to 26 countries and killed
almost 800 people, could have cost the world economy $40 billion
it's now 11:00 p.m. on the 24th of January 2020 we are in Hong Kong we've
had a day to sort of process or try to process what's happened the situation
that we're in and the millions of people are in in China um firstly, before I go
on I just want to make absolutely clear that we are not showing any signs or
symptoms of this virus and if we do we will immediately go to hospital we've
also been practicing very good hygiene I can tell you that since we arrived back
in Wuhan on the 17th which was the Friday we wore our masks
we had antiviral hand gel and we only went out twice in fact to get food
supplies so we think we've minimized the risk of catching this virus as much as
we possibly can
I wan to explain the story so far
and why we left and sort of like how we left so we couldn't really sleep the
Thursday night no sorry the Wednesday night yeah it was the Wednesday night
because obviously the the situation was escalating and I guess a lot of people
weren't really getting that much sleep I was actually asleep but woke up because
your back was awake about 3:00 a.m. and she said 'they're gonna shut down the
city' so we both sort of deliberated for an hour or so
and we come to the conclusion that we wanted to leave so that's what we did we
didn't want to be stuck in the city because we just we don't know like how
long it's going to be locked down and you know
it's a pretty dire situation. In China they're 830 confirmed cases infected
with the virus there's been 26 or 27 deaths I think it's very important to
stress that all of the deaths so far have been either elderly people or
people with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes or sort of
high blood pressure or cancers you know things like this so I think people with
lower immune systems or weak immune systems are suffering the most people
with high immune systems or stronger immune systems seem to be able to fight
off the virus so and that's where we at the moment according to the media so
what's next for us we're gonna take it day-by-day for now not really sure I
mean we don't know how long Wuhan is gonna be locked down and that's where we
are at the moment
as things develop I'm gonna be filming a bit more so if you're interested to follow the story you can watch it here on the on the YouTube or
put everything on the YouTube and I'll be putting some things on my Instagram
as well if you want to follow the story and that's about it really
I guess that's all I can say right now
it's been pretty mad, it's been pretty mental
good luck to everyone in Wuhan and also good luck to everyone in
other Chinese cities as well and other people across the world
Happy New Year
Xīn Nián﻿ Kuài Lè! 新年快乐!
mentally
you