Hazmat Medics Couple In Viral Hospital Hug

Story By: John FengSub-EditorJoseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

AsiaWire

This touching footage seen more than 210 million times online shows the moment two married front-line medical workers in full hazmat suits bump into one another for the first time in five days.

The couple from the city of Shaoxing in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang are both employed at Shaoxing People’s Hospital, where they have been on the front line of combating the Wuhan coronavirus – now officially named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization.

CCTV camera footage shows the pair both wearing full decontamination suits meeting in a narrow hospital corridor inside the quarantine ward on 4th February.

Deputy head nurse of paediatrics Xu Xiaoqi does not immediately recognise husband Chen Bing as the pair stop and prepare to board the same lift, the video shows.

AsiaWire

Mr Chen, who is deputy chief technician in the department of radiology, suddenly points at the smaller woman next to him as he discovers it is the wife.

The couple then share a brief hug in a touching moment which has since gone viral online.

Ms Xu joined front line staff on 30th January before her husband volunteered two days later.

The couple live in different dormitories in order to avoid infecting one another, and they had not seen each other for five days before their unexpected meeting.

Ms Xu said: “I only knew he was working in the quarantine ward. I had no idea about his precise schedule.

AsiaWire

“My husband is quite tall, so when I saw, I thought to myself: ‘Could that be him?’

“I said: ‘Chen Bing, is that you?’ And it really was!

“I was so happy and excited. The two of us are usually a very lovey-dovey people.

“Chen Bing, who was still my boyfriend at the time, was also a front line medic during the SARS outbreak in 2003.

“To be able to ‘fight’ the novel coronavirus together really gives me a lot of confidence.”

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