Not only do medical staff fight against the novel coronavirus on the frontline in central China’s Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic outbreak, so do policemen as well as auxiliary police officers.

Liu Xiaozhong transports patients. (file photo)

Some of the policemen and auxiliary police officers both patrol and guard the Huoshanshen as well as Leishenshan Hospitals. They are also responsible for mobile cabin hospitals, some of them guard the entrances and exits around the city as well as the streets and lanes so as to ensure peace and social stability.

Liu Xiaozhong, a 52-year-old police officer at the Hanxing Street police station in Jianghan District, Wuhan, made a final sprint when he held a patient by the waist, while Zheng Long, deputy director of the police station, was holding the patient’s leg, and Chen Cong, an auxiliary police officer, was struggling as he was passing through a group of people with the patient’s arms raised.

There was no stretcher available, so they had to carry the patient already infected with the novel coronavirus downstairs with their own hands. In fact, that particular patient was very heavy. In that moment, Liu Xiaozhong clenched his teeth and held on.

The clothes in Liu’s protective suit were already soaked with sweat, and the steam in the goggles blurred his vision. He simply pulled the goggles off and threw them away, but the sweat ran down his forehead and blurred his eyes again.

It was not until Liu Xiaozhong finished delivering the patient to medical personnel that he remembered the fact that when he was carrying the patient downstairs, the patient's head was actually pressing against his own head, and furthermore, that he had not been wearing a mask.

Police officer Shi Xuerong stands guard at a community. (Photo/Li Yusheng)

The air the patient exhaled aspirated directly onto Liu's head and face. "I didn’t care much, as saving people can be such a race against time. We can not think so much in the moment," Liu said.

The police station where Liu Xiaozhong works is only a few hundred meters from Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a suspected source of the novel coronavirus spreading globally. 

"We have five high-risk communities in Jianghan District." Liu said that since Jan. 26, when he was tasked with transporting patients to hospitals and counting them in isolation, he had transferred 400 to 500 patients over the past month, due to the overwhelming number of ambulances in the early days of the outbreak. 

"At its peak, 28 patients were transferred in one day," Liu added.

In addition to the transfer of patients, the work on daily maintenance of social order remains a top priority. At 3 a.m. on Feb. 25, Liu Xiaozhong suddenly received the call informing that there was a patient that suddenly became mental illness under his jurisdiction, and the situation was very critical. 

After ending the call, Liu Xiaozhong and his colleagues responded quickly and soon found the patient. But the patient suffering the disease was reluctant to cooperate and even broke the protective clothing of a police and scratched the neck of the police.

However, with the country being in a special period of epidemic prevention and control, the patient could not be sent directly to a mental hospital, he needed to be sent to the hospital for nucleic acid testing and lung examination, which naturally fell to Liu and his colleagues’ shoulders. 

The patient's mood was extremely unstable during those moments. Liu Xiaozhong and his colleagues took great pains to help the patient finish the test. After a busy day, it was 6 p.m., and Liu was responsible for continuing to watch the patient until the nucleic acid test results show negative. The patient was finally sent to the mental hospital.

Wang Dexiong helps volunteers deliver supplies. (People's Daily/Shen Shaotie)

Liu Xiaozhong became a police officer in 2006 after retiring from the army. Liu had an excellent psychological quality due to his military experience, yet he is still nervous about the epidemic: "After all, the novel coronavirus is very infectious." Yet, the amazing thing is that no one in the police station is flenching in the face of the epidemic.

"Everyone thinks there's nothing to fear from an outbreak if you do a good job of personal protection. At the same time, urgent care cases can't be delayed as it's a race against time to save the patient's life," Liu said, adding that, "every time I hear bad news, I feel very guilty and not at ease. I can't sleep well on such nights."