Border Town Ruili: 7 days from the closure of the city to the release
On September 18 this year, Ruili City did not sound the routine "September 18" air defense alert.
On that day, in this small town on the border of Yunnan that was in a "war-time state of epidemic prevention" due to the invasion of the new crown virus, the government decided to cancel the alarm to avoid panic.
Only the monotonous radio sound reverberated on the street, calling out such as "If you have a green onion at home, don't rush out".
After the city was closed at 22:00 on September 14, this became the most frequently heard voice of Ruili people-the slogan of home isolation.
Two Burmese smugglers carrying the new crown virus made this place quiet and empty.
Stowaways entered Ruili on September 3.
32-year-old Yang Zuomou brought 3 children and 2 nanny into the country illegally from Namkan, Myanmar.
Six people lived in the home of Yang Zuomou's sister in Ruili City.
After that, Yang went to vegetable markets, parks, and gyms.
Until September 10, she felt insensitive to smell and taste and went to the hospital for a nucleic acid test.
One day later, rumors spread.
On September 12, the news of "1 suspected case" came from the hospital where Yang went to see him.
On that day, the community where Yang moved in was closed for management.
The government temporarily suspended all gathering activities such as live broadcasts and transactions in the jewelry and jade bases in Ruili City. Merchants were required to undergo nucleic acid testing, and "negatives can enter the venue."
Two days later, the situation changed. Even if the nucleic acid test result was negative, the merchants were not allowed to enter the market.
The suspension of the live broadcast is not a trivial matter for Ruili.
Here is the most prosperous jewelry and jade trading market in China.
According to official data, Ruili Jewellery's jade live broadcast industry has a transaction volume of more than 10 billion yuan in 2019. As of May 2020, there are more than 60,000 people in the live broadcast industry.
On September 14, the government released the news that "Ruili has confirmed 2 cases of new coronary pneumonia".
Ruili City is located in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province. This land is surrounded by Burma on three sides, and wedged like a tenon into the "Mao" of the territory of Burma.
A local person described: "It is not surprising that bullets hit the (Chinese) villagers' homes in the surrounding villages in the war in Myanmar."
The border here is 169.8 kilometers long, and many villages belong to half of China and half of Myanmar.
This phenomenon is known locally as "one village and two countries". Border residents live across borders and "enter the country by accident."
When an infectious disease more fierce than SARS strikes, it is unrealistic to want to artificially pull up an "isolation zone" on the border.
After August 19, a second wave of new crown pneumonia outbreaks occurred in Myanmar.
According to data from the Ministry of Health and Sports of Myanmar, two confirmed cases were detected in the country for the first time on March 23. By August 19, a total of 40 cases were confirmed.
After that, it increased sharply at an average rate of 174 cases per day. As of 8 o'clock on September 21, a total of 5805 cases had been reported.
In Myanmar, the most severely affected areas are Rakhine State and Yangon Province.
The epidemic has a tendency to spread from southwestern Myanmar to northern Myanmar.
At present, Shan State and Kachin State, which border China in northern Myanmar, have weaker epidemics, but they are also increasing.
Shang Zhenghai, deputy director of the Ruili City Public Security Bureau, said in response to reporters: "The biggest pressure Ruili faces is that the epidemic is imported from the border by land and water. If it is not handled properly, it will bring the risk of the spread of the epidemic to the whole province and the country."
The six people smuggled this time lived in Mandalay Province, Myanmar. On the day they left on August 31, there were only six confirmed cases in the province.
When they arrived in Ruili on September 3, Mandalay had increased to 10.
By the time Ruili announced that 2 of the 6 people were diagnosed and decided to close the city, Mandalay had increased to 102 cases.
On September 18, the number of confirmed cases in Mandalay reached 140.
According to the "Myanmar Times" report, Mandalay Central Hospital has felt the pressure of hospitalization, and the government is preparing a 300-bed medical center to cope with the increasing number of infections.
Before Ruili closed the city, the spread of the outbreak in Myanmar has put pressure on China's border areas to prevent the virus.
Yunnan has 34 new cases since February 20, mainly imported from abroad.
Ruili banned and shut down illegal ferry crossings, formed a water patrol team to try to cut off the waterway for smuggling, and mobilized the public to report smugglers.
But these failed to stop the 6 "lost fish".
After the incident, Ruili City increased the number of border control points from 230 to 502. The police led the dogs to patrol the border day and night, and the border villages were closed for management 24 hours a day.
An official analysis of the smuggling cases this year found that most smugglers smuggled from roads or trails bordering land.
On September 14, the Ruili City Government announced that it would carry out nucleic acid testing for all employees in the urban area, and the government would bear the cost. It stipulated that no one can enter or leave the urban area of Ruili City after 22:00 on the same day without special circumstances. The time is tentatively scheduled for one week.
Residents in the whole city are isolated from home.
"The closure was too sudden." When the news was announced, many Ruili people had already fallen asleep, and the next day they woke up to send their children to school to find out that the city was closed.
Many people were still angry, "Two stowaways sealed a city."
On the evening of September 14, Yang Benshu, a taxi driver in Dehong Prefecture, sent passengers from the airport in Mangshi to Ruili, but he was trapped in the local area after delivery. He had to find a small hotel for 80 yuan a night.
Some businessmen who had just left Ruili before the closure of the city were asked by the destination to isolate them for observation.
On the morning of September 15th, many local supermarkets were full of electric cars.
Residents started hoarding goods-eggs, dried noodles, ham, green onions, soy sauce, meat, instant noodles are the most sought-after.
Then the news revealed that some merchants were raising meat prices, but they were immediately dealt with by relevant departments.
People slowly settled down.
Since going to the supermarket on the morning of September 15 to grab the chicken, Xu Dandan, a citizen of Ruili, no longer worried that the lockdown of the city would be as nervous as before.
Life and medical supplies are guaranteed, and the government stipulates that "each family can apply to go out to purchase daily necessities once in 3 days."
Supermarkets, vegetable markets, and pharmacies in the urban area are operating normally, and the hospital has not affected the treatment of other patients due to the closure of the city, and the operation continues as usual.
Outside the city, the village department stores are also open as usual.
"Don't panic, feel at ease." Xu Dandan told a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that when Wuhan was closed down, Ruili was far away, but she was also panicked.
"At that time, I ran to four or five drugstores and queued for more than an hour in order to grab masks. In the end, only four were bought."
People in Ruili after the lockdown do not have to worry about not having masks available.
Lianhua Qingwen capsules are piled on the table in front of the drugstore, but there are not many buyers.
There were almost no people on the streets, except for the occasional residents who went to the nucleic acid test sites and the Myanmar migrant workers.
Just when there were only two people diagnosed in Ruili, a shelter hospital with empty beds was built.
Ruan Chengfa, secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, emphasized when he went for an examination, “It would be better to prepare instead of use than to be unavailable.” The two confirmed cases were treated in designated hospitals and their condition improved.
At the same time, the work of acquitting the smuggler Yang Zuomou and others is also under way.
The two cases sounded the alarm for the prevention and control of the border epidemic in Yunnan.
On September 14, Yunnan's 8 border states (cities) and 25 border counties (cities) entered a wartime state of epidemic prevention.
On September 19, Yunnan announced that all levels of the province had entered a state of war.
Since the closure of the city for a week, the number of confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in Ruili has not increased, and has been 2.
Nucleic acid test "negative" results are increasing day by day, and finally stay at 287354.
It is not easy to complete nucleic acid tests for more than 280,000 people within 3 days.
More than 1,000 people have been sent from neighboring areas to support nucleic acid testing in Ruili City.
Guo Juan, a community worker in Ruili, did not expect that all this "will happen in her own city."
But she knew in her heart that once it happened, many tasks would fall on the grassroots workers and medical staff like her.
After the closure of the city, she fell into a busy all-night, more nervous than the early Spring Festival epidemic.
"Entrust the child to the elderly and go to the scene."
Guo Juan is mainly responsible for nucleic acid testing and stowaways investigation in a village.
When the doctors and supplies were in place, it was the early morning of September 15th, “I went to the village to stay up late and started doing it until 5:46 in the morning. When there were no supplies, I stopped.” Guo Juan remembered, “I slept for 5 hours.” When the materials for nucleic acid testing arrive, I get busy again.
With the support of medical staff in Ruili city and subsequent medical staff in Mangshi, Longchuan, Lijiang and other places, they spent two overnights, most of the time relying on instant noodles to get their stomachs, and completed the nucleic acid test of 1996 people in the village.
"In this village like I did in 1996, at least 1,000 people are of Burmese nationality." Guo Juan told China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that Myanmar people can also get free nucleic acid testing.
Most Burmese migrant workers rent houses in villages.
Most of the migrant workers are not smuggling. When investigating, they look for the landlord, and if there are Burmese nationals, they will register one by one, look at the pass and "Mabeng Ding" (Myanmar ID card).
"As far as our investigation is concerned, they are all those who have come to Ruili for more than a few years, more than ten years, and half a year short." Guo Juan said, "Myanmar people (salaries) are cheap, and we do business here. Like to find Burmese workers as small workers."
In addition to the 220,000 people from Ruili and migrants from home and abroad, data released in 2019 show that there are more than 50,000 Burmese migrants doing business and working in Ruili.
On some streets in the Jiegao Border Trade Zone in Ruili, Burmese shops lined up.
He Qiang, a native of Heilongjiang (a pseudonym), has been in Ruili for 4 years, where he is doing live jewellery and jade live broadcasts. Burmese people often come to sell rough jadeite.
He told reporters that most of the waiters working in Ruili restaurants are Burmese girls.
In Mu Jie, who is "separated by a net" from China, Burmese often stretch bamboo poles high above the barbed wire to sell goods to tourists, and even sneak over the barbed wire to enter the country illegally.
As for the confirmed case of Yang Zuomou, who was smuggled into Ruili this time, some people speculated that she was "coming to visit relatives", while others speculated that "Mandalay had a serious epidemic and came to China for asylum".
But the official did not announce the reason for her smuggling.
From the street view alone, Ruili is a bit like Wuhan when the city was closed. There are often only takeaways and cleaners on the road.
Since most citizens cannot go out, the owner of the milk tea shop has no time to chat. The delivery staff are busier than usual. The Burmese cleaners are pushing garbage trucks to search for them, and they can’t find garbage to clean. They are rarely free these days. .
In a small border town with a population of less than 300,000, schools, express delivery, public transportation, shops, and live broadcasts were suspended. Many businessmen who moved along the border suffered damage.
The Jewelry City, which was filled with stones at dark, the bustling live broadcast base in the past, and Nongmo Lake Park, which was full of snack carts at night, were all empty.
Occasionally, there is an open Lanzhou noodle restaurant on the street, and it also uses two tables to block the door of the store. Only packing is allowed, not dining.
Ruili was not originally like this.
This is the largest land port city between China and Myanmar.
It has the only border trade zone in China that implements the special mode of management of "inside customs outside the customs"-Jie Gao.
At the gate of sisters, there are often busy scenes of "carrying tropical fruits in and out of motorcycles".
Before the closure due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic, there were more than 49,000 people crossing the border every day.
In recent years, Ruili has become famous for its "Jade Live Broadcast".
In the live broadcast base where He Qiang is located, there are 600 live broadcast companies, 3,500 anchors, and more than 50,000 people come and go every day on weekdays, and the cargo owners of China and Myanmar are following each other.
In the Yucheng live broadcast base in the Jiejiao Free Trade Zone, data shows that in July, an average of 50,000 orders were traded per day, bringing in sales of 430 million yuan.
The closure of the city stopped all this.
Rough stones can't come in, jewelry can't go out.
More than 280,000 people are waiting for the moment of unblocking.
He Qiang said jokingly: "(Closing the city) just give yourself a vacation." The taxi driver Yang Benshu eats instant noodles every day, and waits to leave Ruili at the small hotel with his mobile phone.
In far away Henan, a pregnant woman who was approaching her due date counted the days when Ruili closed the city every day, hoping to release it soon.
There is no other reason: her husband works in Ruili, and she hopes to witness the birth of the child with her husband.
On the evening of September 21, on the seventh day of Ruili’s closure of the city, Gong Yunzun, member of the Standing Committee of the Dehong Prefectural Party Committee and Secretary of the Ruili Municipal Party Committee, announced at the news conference on the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic: "From 22:00 on September 21, 2020, Ruili City Home isolation in the city."
This evening, some people gathered to toast and celebrate, and some people eagerly told a friend on the other side of the phone that Ruili was unblocked.
Some merchants selling jadeite "cheers" with ice cream in the shop to celebrate the release.
Many citizens walked out of their homes by coincidence, and the night sky of the entire city was illuminated by fireworks blooming everywhere.
The tranquility that had been in the city for 7 days was finally broken.
Outsiders stranded in Ruili for many days came to the entrance of the expressway toll gate, waiting in line to leave.
"But" at the press conference on the night of unblocking, Gong Yunzun said: "We must clearly realize that zero positive does not equal zero risk, and comprehensive prevention and control of imported epidemics from abroad is still the current priority." He also called on all regions. Don't impose additional restrictions on people leaving Ruili-this is not uncommon in places that have experienced lockdowns.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Li Qiang Source: China Youth Daily