Zhang Yu

JeniZhang13@163.com

THREE teams consisting of 47 medical professionals who had been assisting the cities of Wuhan and Jingzhou in Hubei Province in their fight against the COVID-19 outbreak were greeted by an enthusiastic reception as they safely returned to Shenzhen on Friday night.

Reverential slogans lit up the city’s two famous landmarks, namely, Ping An International Finance Center and Kingkey 100. Light shows were staged at Civic Center, Shenzhen Talent Park and Bao’an Coast Square to pay homage to the medical workers, and portraits of the medics were displayed on more than 400 outdoor LED screens across the city to extend the warmest possible welcome.

Escorted by a police motorcade, the frontline medical staff received salutes at checkpoints while entering the city on a chartered bus that was sent to Guangzhou South Railway Station to take them home.

The three teams are the first, second and fourth batches of medical workers that Shenzhen sent to Hubei. The first batch was sent to Wuhan, the nation’s epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, while the other two were dispatched to Jingzhou.

Shenzhen Party chief Wang Weizhong and Mayor Chen Rugui conveyed greetings to the returning medical staff.

“Today, all of our 47 members are back safe and sound,” Yi Li, representative of the medical teams, said at the welcoming ceremony held at the Shenzhen Institute of Talent Research in Nanshan District. Yi is the director of the medical department of Peking University Shenzhen Hospital.

On behalf of the medical teams, Yi expressed gratitude to the city government, their hospitals as well as citizens for their concern and support.

Over the past month, the medical team working at Wuhan’s mobile cabin hospital has tended to 572 patients, 184 of who have been cured and discharged, according to the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission. The medical staff screened 170 potential critically ill patients and transferred them to designated hospitals.

Meanwhile, Shenzhen nurses have monitored the vital signs of 24,446 patients and the oxygen saturation of 10,039 patients, collected 1,236 throat swab specimens, and given out a newly developed pneumonia decoction to 5,214 patients.

A mental health team consisting of five experts in psychological counseling, the city’s fifth batch of medics sent to Hubei, arrived in the city yesterday afternoon. Their portraits are on display starting yesterday afternoon and a light show was staged in their honor at the city’s CBD at 7 p.m. yesterday.

All returning medics will be quarantined for 14 days before they can return to their homes.

At present, a team comprising traditional Chinese medicine workers still remains in Wuhan.

Shenzhen has dispatched five medical teams of 77 experienced doctors and nurses to join the fight against COVID-19 in Hubei since Feb. 9.

Over 42,000 medical workers from across the country were dispatched to aid Hubei in fighting the epidemic since the virus outbreak. Some medical assistance teams started leaving Hubei on March 17 as the epidemic outbreak in the hard-hit province has subsided.