Shanghai officials help expats deal with virus

After receiving diseaseprevention guidance from local community workers, Simon Lichtenberg felt relieved and accompanied his family to Japan on Sunday for a holiday trip.

Despite the current coronavirus outbreak, Lichtenberg, who is Danish and lives in the Ronghua neighborhood in Changning District with his wife and two children, said they feel safe due to the calm and professional attitude of the neighborhood-committee staff.

“I think Shanghai in general has done an excellent job,” said Lichtenberg, CEO of Trayton Group/Simon Li Furniture China Company, who has lived in the city for 28 years.

He has received the Magnolia Gold Award from the city government for his outstanding contributions to Shanghai’s development.

“Before we left for Hokkaido, the Shanghai government issued clear guidelines on how to disinfect and wear masks,” he said.

Strict preventative measures have also been implemented in his compound, where no outsiders, like deliverymen, can enter the building.

Everyone in the building must wear masks.

Similar measures have been implemented elsewhere in the city.

“It was very comprehensive and also very calm and professional, which made us feel safer, Panic does not help anything, but professional care and proper attention in due course are very important,” Lichtenberg said.

He and his family plan to return to Shanghai February 2.

Expats like Lichtenberg are enjoying a peaceful and reassuring Chinese New Year festival thanks to the efforts of Sheng Hong and her colleagues as they work to prevent new cases of the virus.

Sheng, Party secretary of the Ronghua neighborhood committee, and 20 other community workers are screening residents traveling back from Wuhan in Hubei Province, the city hardest hit by the virus.

They visit quarantined residents and provide diseaseprevention tips.

More than 33,000 residents from 50 nations live in the Ronghua neighborhood of Gubei, one of the city’s earliest and biggest international communities.

The screening process there is nearly complete. So far, a

Japanese resident who traveled back from Wuhan on January 22 and an Australian family have been quarantined in their homes for a 14-day observation.

Every day Sheng accompanies the medical staff from the district’s disease-control center to take temperatures and talk with residents.

“It is important to visit the quarantined residents to send them meals and daily necessities as well as help solve any problems,” she said.

Intensified screening

To avoid scaring residents, Sheng calls the quarantined residents beforehand and asks medical workers to wear protective suits only after entering the buildings.

“Other residents might be surprised to see fully armed medical staff in the neighborhood,” she said.

The quarantined Japanese resident recently thanked Sheng and other community workers for the level of care provided.

The Ronghua committee, along with its property-management company, launched a screening and promotion campaign for residents.

The launch was in response to Shanghai officials’ January 24 announcement of a highlevel action plan to prevent and control the spread of infections linked to a new strain of the virus.

Additional intensive measures have been carried out in other communities.

The virus has spread to more than a dozen countries, including the United States, Australia and Vietnam.