Pregnant woman receives government's prompt help through Internet in virus-hit Shenzhen

A pregnant woman in south China's Shenzhen asked for urgent help through the Internet and got timely assistance from the local government on Saturday.

With four locally transmitted COVID-19 cases reported in Shenzhen as of Sunday, epidemic prevention and control measures have been carried out in parts of the city. For hospitalization, a negative nucleic acid test certificate is necessary.

A 28-year-old pregnant woman felt unwell and went to the emergency clinic on Friday. She was told that she needed to be hospitalized on Saturday, so the woman had a nucleic acid test at 9pm that Friday night.

However, the test result was still not available by 11am Saturday. The woman was not feeling well and needed to be hospitalized as soon as possible. Her husband, with the surname of He, decided to leave a message for help under the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission's official Wechat account.

"When will the nucleic acid result come out? It has been 12 hours. My wife needs the result to get hospitalized," the message said.

The message was read by Wang Ling, head of the publicity and education department of the municipal health commission.

"Give me your phone number," Wang replied, six minutes after the husband called for help.

After getting in touch with He, Wang contacted Shenzhen Longhua District Hospital immediately, where the pregnant woman had the nucleic acid test. But the result was not found in the hospital's data system.

It turned out that the sample had been sent to a third-party test facility, which replied that the nucleic acid test result of the wife had not been approved due to the lack of manpower but they were going to do it immediately.

At 12:28pm Saturday, the result came out. The woman's condition stabilized quickly after hospitalization, according to the husband. He said he didn't expect to get help from the government so soon. The whole thing was settled in just over an hour.

The local government's prompt response to the issue has been praised by netizens.