China's 'day of love' on 02/22/2022

For Lai Lichuan, a 28-year-old medical worker in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, the rare time he spends on the phone with his wife at night is the most relaxing part of his day, after long hours of sampling work.

Lai has spent eight hours a day for 18 consecutive days in the narrow space of a container-like nucleic acid testing vehicle. This has been his daily routine since the border city of Baise reported the first local infection in its latest outbreak on Feb 5.

During the first week, the city logged over 200 COVID-19 cases. Since then, Guangxi has sent more than 16,000 medical workers to accelerate nucleic acid screening. Multiple mobile COVID-19 test vehicles have been used to collect and test a daily average of over 12,000 samples.

At the mention of Tuesday and the special meaning it holds in China, Lai said he felt relieved. "The new outbreak in Guangxi has been brought under control step by step, and locals are resuming normal work and life. As a grassroots medical worker, I'm glad that my hard work has paid off."

"The zero-case policy demonstrates our country's unremitting endeavors to safeguard the health of its people. I hope the scattered local infections across China can be brought under control and that all of us will be able to reunite with our loved ones, safe and sound," he said.

This week also marks the beginning of this year's spring academic semester.