Almost one month ago, people in Singapore were met with a breaking news.
About two days after the then-called “Wuhan virus” was reported to be transmittable from human to human, Singapore reported its index patient of the virus, now known as COVID-19.
Can’t believe it’s been less than a month, right?
And the 66-year-old Shanxi native, who arrived in Singapore on 20 January 2020 and was tested positive for the virus on 23 January 2020, was finally discharged yesterday (19 February 2020) after a 28-day stay at the Singapore General Hospital.
He had a sore throat while on the flight to Singapore but did not have a fever until the next day. Initially, he had wanted to visit a normal clinic, was afraid that he had the virus and therefore went direct to the hospital.
And that was when he was isolated immediately and soon, became the first of the many COVID-19 cases.
After his discharge, he had an exclusive interview with Lianhe Zaobao.
Didn’t Want “Suffering to S’poreans”
Do remember that exactly one month ago, we didn’t even know if COVID-19 can be transmitted from human to human.
However, even before more information was revealed, Singapore has already taken numerous precautionary measures: this includes temperature screening of all people who came from China.
You might not know this, but even before COVID-19 became a regular topic in the coffeeshop, the folks in MOH have already started issuing daily media release, informing us about suspected cases and whatnot.
Of course, in their media releases, they emphasised this repeatedly: “Singapore is likely to see more suspect cases that will need to be investigated for possible links to the Wuhan cluster, and we cannot rule out the possibility of imported cases.”
In a video interview with Lianhe Zaobao, the patient, who wants to be known as Wang, opens up about his experience.
For a start, he admits that being in China would be much different, saying, “There are too many patients, so who knows how I would have been treated.”
This is apparently his first trip out of China.
Over in Wuhan, there has been reports of medical staff running out of medical supplies and PPE, which leads to medical professionals reusing their suits or masks.
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Apparently, his son, who was also diagnosed with the virus shortly, had advised him to seek treatment in a hospital instead of a clinic.
Knowing that there’s a chance he might carry the virus, he went direct to SGH because he didn’t want to “bring suffering to Singaporeans”.
And just like all patients who have opened up about their experience, Wang also sang praises for the Singapore medical professionals.
For a start, he’s impressed with how “kiasu” and “kiasi” Singapore is; there were certain days when he was tested negative but to play safe, he can’t be discharged as they continued to test on the next day.
It’s unknown how many days he had to be tested negative before he could be discharged.
Other than that, he had nothing but praises for the staff who took care of him. They were friendly and Wang could feel their warmth, concern and their dedication to their work.
So, after being isolated for 28 days, what’s the first thing he wanted to do? One of the discharged patients was looking forward to a normal Life.
As for Wang, he wanted a bowl of hot, dry noodles.
Well, maybe we’ve the best medical professionals in the world, but let’s call a spade a spade: we can’t say much about the food in hospital lah.
