On the occasion of International Women's Day when women across the world are supposed to celebrate, some of them in China have been distributing leaflets with epidemic prevention information, taking temperatures of local residents and conducting disinfection of the communities in their neighbourhoods.
Zhang Jian, 37, as usual, put on a red vest and a mask early in the morning and began her daily inspection in a community in north China's Tianjin Municipality.
She works at least six hours a day, from distributing leaflets with epidemic prevention information, taking temperatures of local residents and conducting disinfection of the community of over 2,600 households.
Jian is a cancer patient. She suffered from breast cancer with axillary lymph node metastasis in 2017 and still needs to take pills and get an injection every month due to her mastectomy.
Worried about her physical condition, her husband got her a 30-day sick note but Jian had no time to take even a single day off. She had been working for over 40 days in a row.
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"Everyone is overloaded. If I ask for leave, my colleagues will be stressed out," she said.
There are only nine workers in the community, each taking care of about 300 households. They also take turns with eight other personnel to work as "gatekeepers" to register the movements of vehicles and personnel in the community.
Jian also stated that grid-based workers have built the first line of defense against the coronavirus. "To protect local residents is to defend ourselves. I will stick it out," she said.
"Some residents have given us cakes, umbrellas, and porridge as a token of appreciation, which warms us from the winter cold," she said.
In a similar case, Zhang Ying, 45, has been on duty around the clock over the past month. As a psychological consultant, her soft tone has soothed many that encounter stress or depression amid the epidemic.
"Psychological assistance is a placebo for those suffering from mental stress. And our hotline is like a life-saving straw that can help ease panic and make them feel secure," Ying stressed.
Ying, also, at times, receive more than 20 calls a day. The inquirers include parents and children of frontline medics, confirmed COVID-19 patients, and close contacts under quarantine.
"Negative emotion may cause more serious consequences than the epidemic. I will try my best to help people fight against the coronavirus with my expertise," Ying noted.
In a third such incidence, a 28-year-old Cui Mengwei, a laboratory technician of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Hexi District in Tianjin, effectively screens nucleic acid samples of suspected virus-infected patients as well as those quarantined.
She remains in close contact with the virus for about four to five hours every day with a heavy hazmat suit and medical goggles. Her face is left with blood-red marks after a day's work and she often has to put the outfit on again before the marks have faded.
Mengwei just got married in January, and the couple had planned to celebrate the Spring Festival in her husband's hometown Beijing, a Chinese tradition. But she canceled the plan and ended in the lab after the virus outbreak that originated from Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province.
"I look so handsome, Mom, don't I? Can you tell which one is me?" She once texted her mother a photo of herself with her colleagues at work. "Of course I can," her mother replied over the phone, in a broken voice.
Mengwei's husband also stayed to accompany his bride. On a snowy night, when Cui finally got off work at 4 a.m., she found her partner snoring inside the car covered with thick snow.
"I arrived at 1 o'clock and had a good sleep already," he smiled.
"I was deeply moved and felt very sorry," she said. "Many of my colleagues are women of the same age as me, all of them are responsible and passionate youngsters," said Mengwei.
The deadly virus has spread to more than 50 countries globally, killing more than 3,600 people and infecting over a lakh others.
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