Doctor Wari’s Life in Wuhan Lockdown2020.06.22

Ali Wari, a Palestinian living in China for about 25 years, took on a new role as a WeChat group leader. During the Wuhan lockdown, he offered to help with his background in medical science.

Ali was studying at the Peking University Health Science Center when SARS broke out in 2003. Witnessing how the Chinese government successfully combated such a terrible virus, he’s quite confident that China will go through the difficulties and succeed again this time. As his confidence all came from his educational background and personal experience in China, how can he help Arabians new to Wuhan and to China to overcome their fears and lead a comparatively comfortable life in the hard time? Like many others, Ali turned to WeChat, the most popular instant messaging app now in China. He set up a WeChat group of about 480 Arab members, most of whom live or work in the hard-hit city of Wuhan.

Ali has a lot of doctor friends. With his medical background and mastery of three languages—Arabic, Chinese, and English—he has a better understanding of what is happening at the frontline. Hence, he has translated a lot of official news articles and documents, which helped the Arabs stay calm in Wuhan.

As an insider, he’s filled with indignation at times when reading some false information going around. To clear the misunderstandings about Wuhan, he has posted a lot of pictures and showed his own life on Facebook and in interviews. He’s called Doctor Wari on Facebook and has thousands of followers.

He currently works as the marketing manager of Hubei Topgene Biotechnology, a high-tech enterprise in Wuhan Optics Valley. Supplies worth over 1.2 million yuan were donated to two local hospitals by the company during this epidemic in Wuhan. When the situation in Wuhan got better, the company donated supplies worth some 200,000 yuan to Italy.

He refused the evacuation suggestion from the Palestinian government twice, not only because of his confidence in China, but also out of his love for Wuhan. He didn’t want to leave Wuhan in its darkest hours. Moreover, if he had been an asymptomatic carrier, he could have spread the virus and put his family at risk. And he feels that Chinese doctors are more experienced and have more methods to treat the disease if he gets infected.

Involved in biological medicine, his company resumed operation on March 24, much earlier than many other companies. Stricter prevention and control measures have been taken in his company, where everyone needs to practice social distancing. Also, temperature screening, at exit and entry, is performed.

Ali is quite positive towards the future. He said that, “Life will go on, no matter what happens. It’s just a matter of time.” He agrees with President Xi Jinping’s words that “When you encounter difficulties, do not blame yourself or others, nor should you give up confidence or evade responsibility. Instead, we should overcome difficulties together.” Ali is convinced that China has been doing what President Xi said in the face of these challenges.

From Special Focus

By Bo Ning