Top leaders mourn virus’ victims
Qingming Festival gains significance amid world battle against pandemic
With a day of national mourning for those who lost their lives in the nation’s fight against the novel coronavirus disease, China sent out the message that all lives are respected and that all who sacrifice their lives for the people will be remembered, analysts said.
President Xi Jinping and other leaders joined all Chinese people on Saturday in mourning the martyrs who sacrificed their lives combating the disease and compatriots who succumbed to it. At Zhongnanhai, the central leadership compound, they observed three minutes of silence to mourn the deceased.
National flags were lowered to half-staff across the country and at Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, and all public recreational activities were suspended nationwide. Air raid sirens and automobile, train and ship horns sounded for three minutes starting at 10 am Saturday.
In Wuhan, Hubei province, the Chinese mainland city hit hardest by the epidemic, a memorial ceremony was held for those who lost their lives to the disease. Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, who has led a central group to oversee epidemic control in Hubei since the outbreak started, attended the ceremony.
On Saturday, Ying Yong, secretary of the Communist Party of China Hubei Provincial Committee,
visited families of the martyrs and expressed his condolences to the heroes.
Saturday marked this year’s Qingming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day, a traditional festival for Chinese families to visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the grave sites, pray to their ancestors and make ritual offerings.
As of Saturday night, 3,329 people on the Chinese mainland had died of the contagion.
Yang Yu, a media commentator, said that in the fight against the epidemic, millions of ordinary Chinese stepped forward to help others, some even sacrificing themselves, in an expression of the extraordinary value Chinese people place on life.
“May the dead rest in peace and the living stay stronger. We should carry on with the philosophy of people-centered development and the value of respect for life, and we should strive to achieve constant progress in the nation’s development out of respect for those who lost their lives,” Yang said.
Luo Zhihua, head nurse at Wuhan No. 1 Hospital’s Neurosurgery Department, said she burst into tears while observing the three minutes of silence with her colleagues. The mourning made her think of the days when the patients suffered from the disease in isolation wards and her colleagues dedicated themselves to working on the front line of the battle against the virus, she said.
Tian Lin, head of the Duowen Community in Wuhan’s Jianghan district, said he witnessed the suffering of the residents in responding to the epidemic and feels pain for the martyrs who lost their lives fighting the novel coronavirus.
“As the epidemic situation improves, we will continue to strengthen the prevention and control measures in the community to fight until we secure the final victory of the war on the virus,” Tian said.
Deng Linghao, a resident of the Sangyang Community in Wuhan’s Jiang’an district, said the deceased will forever be remembered for their sacrifices. “I hope that the epidemic will soon end, that the medical workers who are still on the
front line will stay safe, and that we can resume normal life and continue to work for a better future.”
International friends also joined the Chinese people in mourning.
Gauden Galea, World Health Organization representative to China, mourned the deceased on Weibo, China’s biggest social media platform, and promised to continue the fight.
“Today we pause to acknowledge the thousands of people from every walk of life whom we have lost to the COVID-19. … Their lives, their legacy become part of our collective memory and effort to build a better, safer and healthier future,” Galea said.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates expressed condolences on Saturday for the Chinese medical workers who sacrificed themselves in the fight against COVID-19, saying that the UAE stands with China.
“Today we pay our respects as China memorializes the heroic doctors who gave their lives in the fight against COVID-19. In honor of all doctors around the world making the ultimate sacrifice, we will confront this challenge with determination, sheer will and a spirit of solidarity,” he posted on his Twitter account in Chinese, Arabic and English.
Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, called on the world to join China in mourning “those who died from coronavirus, especially health workers on the front lines of the pandemic” on Twitter on Friday. “We should make April 4 a global day of mourning, recognition, and respect,” Horton wrote.
The Russian, Iranian, United Kingdom, French, Japanese, South Korean and Argentine embassies to China also expressed condolences on Weibo. They paid tribute to the medical workers who are fighting on the front line worldwide, and called for international cooperation in virus containment.