248 Contagious Atypical Pneumonia

San Hai City was a small state and Jiang Xing Municipal within it was even smaller. Jiang Xing Municipal sat by the coastline but its tourism was not developed. The hospital at this small city had received more than 20 similar cases since the morning of August 2nd. They all suffered from the same symptoms: fever, listlessness and coughing. Those with light symptoms were diagnosed with flu while those with more serious symptoms were disagnosed with pneumonia.

When Huang Lin, the doctor on night duty consulted a 18 year old patient named Shen Haoxuan, she heard from the patient quite plainly that he was infected by a middle-aged uncle whom he shared a bus with that morning. Instantly, alarms rang in Huang Lin’s mind. This looked like the start of an epidemic. Huang Lin immediately requested for the patient’s files of everyone who registered at the hospital that day. The middle-aged uncle whom Shen Haoxuan mentioned did exist, he was a 43 years old patient who was sent from emergency right into the medical ward at 8 am, Huang Guoxin.

Huang Lin shared her report with another doctor working at the emergency room, Zhao Yutao. She considered reporting this to the bigger state hospital. Their hospital was a small one, there were only 2 doctors working the emergency shift.

“An epidemic?!” Zhao Yutao, who was already in his middle age, frowned. “With the hot weather recently, it’s common for us to have an influx of patients with pneumonia. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.” Once the news reached the state hospital, no matter if it was real or not, there would be much paperwork to follow up. Zhao Yutao did not want the trouble, especially now that it was midnight. Other than that, Zhao Yutao did not like Huang Lin that much, she was a graduate from a famous university, Eastern State Medical University. From his perspective, she was inexperienced and liked to make things out of nothing. “We’ll just transfer the first patient whom you pointed out to the state hospital, stating that we do not have enough equipment to deal with his conditions,” He advised.

“Brother Zhao, this is not something that can be settled so easily.” Huang Xin insisted on her observation, “We need people from the disease control centre.” She turned to make the call to the hospital contagion management office and medical department. She reported the illness as contagious atypical pneumonia under the category B contagious diseases with signs of spreading. “The latent period for normal pneumonia should be more than five days. For this illness that we’re dealing with, there are similar early symptoms but after the high fever, the patient’s conditions will deteriorate at an alarming rate. The same is observed from another patient who is suspected to have been infected from another patient. He started to have bloody coughs only after 6 to 7 hours!”

Huang Lin stressed the severity of the situation and requested them to make the report to their superiors as well. Time was important in the early reporting of an epidemic, it was 2 hours for category A and 24 hours for category B and C contagious diseases. When category B disease showed signs of surfacing, it should be reported as though they were treating category A contagious disease. Huang Lin was worried that the medical department would delay their report. Every minute was extremely important, the earlier the steps to stop the contagion were taken, the more lives could be saved.

“Isolate the whole hospital immediately.” He Feng’s face wrinkled as he ordered quickly, “Patients who show signs of vomiting are now barred from leaving the hospital. Get the centre to send in more equipment and devices, and everyone in the hospital has to be on Grade 3 protection. This time, we might even need to apply to lockdown on…” He halted and changed the ‘entire San Hai City’ that appeared on his lips to “Jiang Xin Municipal.”

Hopefully this was just a scare, with a contagion that could only travel through close contact between patients. Hopefully… the zone of the epidemic had not spread…

The uneven small town streets were bumpy. He Feng looked out at the retreating streets and the faces of his wife and daughter flashed across his mind. ‘Niu Niu, daddy might need to stay outside for a few more days than promised before daddy can come home.’
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