76 Days (2020)

COVID in Wuhan in the early days, this documentary chronicles the staff and patients in one ward on one floor of a hospital in the 76 days that the city was locked down. There are so many things to say about this disorganized and yet telling movie. The first is the reflection on China. From the way patients are talked to and treated to the extreme commitment of the country to staffing the hospital with people from around the country, you can see from the opening of the movie to the end when people are going home that this is an entirely different culture in every aspect. There is a respect for the elderly and a gentleness in how they are cared for in life and in death. There is also a system of care, even though it is a new disease, they are the first to deal with it and they do not know many critical aspects of caring for patients and preventing spread, but the uniformity of care is impressive. China bungled the beginning badly, but they managed the end game successfully. Contrast this with the US response to COVID. As we come up on our second year the daily numbers of new cases continue to be in the high five figure range and more than half a million people are dead from the disease. The danger of making an infectious disease a political football rather than what it is, a disease that cares not what you think of it, have cost so many families so many losses and for nothing gained.