Fang Fang is a professional writer and novelist who chronicles life in Wuhan as the Corona Virus outbreak takes hold of the City and forces 9 million people (including her) into a quarantine that would last 76 days.
Although she is regularly censored and trolled, she gives an authentic critique of the twenty lost days where officials failed to share the severity of the virus while citizens gathered in large crowds across China to celebrate the lunar new year. Her anger is palpable as she lashes out at officials who earlier on said the virus was, “Not contagious between people. It’s controllable and preventable.Those eight words have transformed Wuhan into a city of blood and tears.” She honors the courage and sacrifice of doctors, nurses and volunteers - too many of whom sacrificed their lives. Including Dr. Li Wenliang who was silenced by police for trying to warn people of the deadly virus.

This global pandemic has been tragic, what’s more tragic is the response. “The corona virus is here. And from it’s early phase to its period of expansion and all the way up to the point where it began to get out of control our response has gone from being completely wrong to being delayed to ultimately its current flaw state.” Those were words describing Wuhan. Clearly fitting to describe America today.

China’s experience should’ve been a lesson instead of the disaster we continue to live through. 150,000 Americans dead and no end in sight while a health pandemic has been politicized. Fang Fang also described the secondary disaster the virus caused. Not just those dying and suffering from Covid 19 directly. But the desperation of healthy people whose livelihoods and economic security has taken a hit.

So we know all this. We’ve watched Wuhan and Europe and yet here we are 142 days since March 13th. Unable to do better.
“There is only one test for you: how you treat the weak and vulnerable,” she wrote. True in Wuhan. True everywhere in the world.

This is 2 months worth of diary entries written by a professional author living in the city of WUHAN in Hubei Province, in China. Wuhan is the centre of where the Covid-19 virus began. It was first reported in December 2019, hence the designation of 19 in the name. But between 31 December and 20 January, visitors and tourists continued to visit the city and then began spreading the virus as they travelled home.

Wuhan is a city of 9 million people, It was not put into lockdown until 22 January 2020. This diary was started on 25 January and runs to 24 March 2020.

The authors name is Fang Fang. She is a professional writer. She was aged 65 at the time of writing this diary, and has written some 100 books, mostly novels. In this diary she asks questions of the hospitals, the city administration and even of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) as the numbers of cases and deaths began rising. She has diabetes and she lives alone. Her ex-husband lives elsewhere in the city, as does her daughter. She also says that she herself is not a member of the communist party.

Some of these diary entries are repetitive, and a little boring. There also seems to be rather a lot of "name dropping" as well. Fang Fang seems to know lots of people from the upper echelons of the city administration.

There is NOT one mention of the Cruise ship Diamond Princess which was tied up in Japan with the virus rampaging amongst the crew and passengers in January and February 2020. There is also not one mention of the announcement by the W.H.O officially calling this virus a Global Pandemic.

Some of these diary entries were removed from the online forum where Fang Fang posted them. The censorships seems to go both ways. Some news items cannot get out, and most international news does not get in.

In Late January 2020 my family transportation broke down and we were no longer able to go out to buy food and groceries. We had to start ordering our groceries online and have them delivered. It took 6 weeks for the transportation to be repaired. By the time it was repaired, it was clear that this virus was spreading very fast, so my family chose to just continue to stay at home.

I have now been housebound for 2 years and 2 months. I have been outside only twice. Once to see the doctor just 2 days before the Pandemic was officially announced by the W.H.O in March 2020, The second time was in the summer of 2021 to get my second vaccine jab. I have not been outside since then.

I give this 3 stars. It is interesting, but somewhat dry. Especially if (like me) you have no cultural interest in or connection with China.

FYI - There is also news that today - 28 March 2022 - the city of Shanghai (26 million) is now being forced back into another lockdown as covid case numbers begin to rise again.

An averaged rating-- 4 stars for timeliness and interesting view of life within Wuhan's quarantine; 2 stars for tedium, tangentsm and just wanting it to end already, a little like the pandemic.

Excellent chronicle that manifested itself in so many ways here in the US months later. Would have been good to have had all this information earlier. This woman is a force of nature. Will look into getting translations of her other works.

3.5/5stars

This was VERY informative and interesting but, just like actual quarantine lol, was a bit repetitive. I'm sure this would have been more fun if you were keeping up as she was posting each day and I see that little ray of hope these entries probably gave people, but reading it all at once was a bit much. Other than that, this is such a perfect little time capsule of 2020 and will be probably studied for years to come.

Decent though long - favorite part is the translator’s notes. Is there a potential book on the trolling?