Learning to adapt

A new patient was admitted to Jiang's wards on Jan 29. He was a physician of neurology and became infected after performing a procedure on his patient.

"Looking at his blue lips and the increased ventilator pressure, I prayed silently that his condition would get better. The novel coronavirus pneumonia causes many patients' condition to deteriorate sharply and they won't recover easily," Jiang writes in a Chinese journal.

On the fifth day, when entering the ICU, Jiang noticed that some new medical staff had written their names on their protection garment-they were ICU nurses from all over the country sent to help Wuhan.

The workflow gradually got smoother, several seriously ill patients were stabilized and, after several cloudy days, the sun finally came out.

Jiang says that when the medical team started drawing small cartoons on their protective clothing, it meant the situation in Wuhan was improving and the pressure on doctors and nurses was easing.

"In the first few days we were under such great pressure that we didn't even think of writing down names, there wasn't even a marker pen there. Sadly, I can only remember some pretty eyes with no name that worked with me then," Jiang says.