Across China: Cured COVID-19 patients back to work

Looking at the hustle and bustle surrounding him as he drove slowly through the downtown area, Ye Jian (a pseudonym), a taxi driver in Yinchuan, capital of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, afforded himself a sense of delight where anxiety once reigned supreme.

"Such heavy traffic used to be my headache, but now I only see the vitality of the city," said Ye, a COVID-19 patient who was cured in February and discharged from home quarantine in March.

As most Chinese provinces downgraded their public health emergency response for COVID-19, work has returned to people's daily life. And for those who have just escaped the coronavirus, returning to work offers them respite from their mental trauma.

Ye has been driving a taxi for two months. Having not found a partner yet, he drives both day and night shifts in a row. He leaves home at about 6:30 in the morning, and returns after 11 p.m., sometimes after midnight.

"Business is picking up. It's a good thing to earn more because I have a baby to raise," Ye said. His child is only five months old.

Five people in Ye's family were confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19, including Ye and his wife. Their child was taken good care of in the hands of medical staffers while they were hospitalized.

When the couple ended their quarantine, Ye's wife was worried to go out.

"I didn't know if the neighbors would look at me differently," she said. But a little walk with her baby reassured her.

"People I met have been very kind to me actually. I began to go shopping with friends," she said.

Official data showed that over 78,000 COVID-19 patients have been discharged from hospital after recovery on the Chinese mainland, including 75 in Ningxia.

As the COVID-19 epidemic has been gradually brought under control, resumed work distracted the attention of the cured patients, which is beneficial to their psychological rehabilitation, according to Zhang Xuehui, a clinical psychologist in Ningxia's Ning'an Hospital.

Zhang offered counseling to COVID-19 patients during the epidemic. She began to notice that her patients talked more about their spouses and children, and less about the contagion or themselves lately.

"The anxiety and insomnia caused by quarantine have been greatly eased as they returned to work. Many of them have become more optimistic and talkative," she said.

Yang Yu (a pseudonym), 44, also a cured COVID-19 patient, returned to work as a seller at a shopping mall in Yinchuan even earlier than Ye did. The commute between her home and workplace soothed her.

"I was worried that my colleagues would alienate me, or my boss would fire me. Thankfully, nothing happened. I even got my basic salary while I was being treated," she said.

Government workers visited her several times to check on her health and offered to help with job hunting if she needed.

Ye said he had a lot of time to think during his treatment and quarantine, and realized what really mattered in life. He took two days off during the Labor Day holiday so that he could stay with his family.

"For me, making money is important enough, but it would lose meaning if I'm not with my family," he said.