Hong Kong Youth Ming Weijie: "make a difference" in the...

Burger, baked rice, cola, and egg tarts are Ming Weijie's New Year's Eve dinner. At 0:00 on January 25, there was no New Year's bell, only the click of the keyboard. Mingwei Jie, who worked hard before the case, did not realize that the Lunar New Year had arrived, and he spent the New Year's Eve in writing a research report. It was another 4 a.m.; he finally turned off the computer to rest.

Ming Weijie was born in Hong Kong, China. After graduating from high school, he came to Guangzhou Jinan University to begin a six-year undergraduate career in clinical medicine in the UK. At the age of 34, he is an associate professor in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine of the School of Medicine of Jinan University. He also serves as the class advisor of the clinical medicine class of Jinan University voluntarily. Wu Yixun, teaching assistant, said: "I originally thought there would be a big gap with the teacher, but I didn't feel that way after the meeting. He was approachable." The "Popular Science Popularization Team" ( "Popular Science Team") was formed by him, leading more than 100 students from various colleges and departments.

Reacting to risk is an instinct

On January 15, two hours before sunrise in Hong Kong, the night before dawn is particularly long. Generally at this time, Ming Weijie had fallen asleep, but at this moment, he turned sideways. As the Spring Festival approached, the number of people moved frequently and intensively, but the number of confirmed cases of new coronavirus pneumonia reported by Wuhan reached 41 cases ... The years of research experience rooted in public health preventive medicine made him feel that this time it was not simple pneumonia is as simple as that.

 Times fly and the virus is spreading quietly. Ming Weijie thought that if the virus had the "human-to-human" nature, the infection would be very fast, and the subsequent danger would be immeasurable. But across the country, a considerable number of people are unaware of the existence of the virus, and they do not even know how to protect themselves. "It's time to do something!". Ming Weijie hardly slept anymore and conceived various plans in his mind. In the early morning, he decided to establish a popular science team to popularize the knowledge of new coronary pneumonia. Two of his students are similar to Ming Weijie's. Wu Huailiang, one of the founders of the famous science team, said, "We also have ideas in our hearts to contribute, but the earliest ideas, and put into practice"

When the epidemic was about to erupt, he quickly formed a popular science team, just as he was keen and determined 17 years ago.

 In 2003, the SARS virus raged in Hong Kong. Shops closed, restaurants closed, and the bustling streets of the old days became depressed. This is the first time people have faced this unknown disease. Everyone seems at a loss, and the whole city is shrouded in haze and melancholy. This situation is also what the 18-year-old Ming Weijie has been and is even more reluctant to see. In a short period, hundreds of people have been infected or even died, which touched off his attention to life and the city that had never been seen before. He felt that everything that happened before him was inextricably linked to himself. This thinking regularly guides him and must do something to change the status quo.

 Ming Weijie's father is a chef in a restaurant. During the SARS period, the catering industry faced a cold winter, which affected the family's only source of income. My father was looking forward to returning to work, and my mother was taking care of three younger brothers, and the savings at home were also decreasing. Before this, Ming Weijie had never faced the pressure of life so close. Exams are not only related to your future but also closely related to your family.

On the other hand, SARS has caused countless families like themselves to be confused and panic. On one side is the exam, on the other is the game, the ends of the balance sway countless times in Ming Weijie's mind. In the end, the determination convinced everything and restored the balance to stability. Ming Weijie insisted on completing the game production while preparing for the exam, and successfully put it online. At that time, he did not know that this practice had foretold his later path.

After graduating from high school, Ming Weijie faced two destinations: studying at the University of Hong Kong with a tuition fee of 40,000 Hong Kong dollars per year, studying at Jinan University with a tuition fee of 5,760 yuan per year. In the face of the disparity in tuition fees, Ming Weijie did not hesitate to choose an undergraduate degree in clinical medicine taught in English. After graduation, he continued his studies at the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong. At the master's level, he participated in a research project on whether rotavirus vaccines should be fully promoted in Hong Kong. In his third year of doctorate, Mingweijie went to Oxford University for further study and continued to study the related research of population health. After a long 12-year study journey, after going around, he returned to Guangzhou again and became an expert, entrepreneur, and clinician.

Once you have a longing in your heart, you will try your best to achieve it. Ming Weijie has brought the tenacity, energy, and hard work of his childhood to the present. Starting from the master's choice of public health prevention, he has spared no effort to feedback the professional knowledge he has learned to the society. Especially in the face of major public health incidents, it seems to have become his instinct to immediately respond to and act on risks.

Popular science team: filters in the torrent of information

On January 21, the number of newly diagnosed new pneumonia has reached 218 cases. Every few hours, the situation will have new changes. The Spring Festival is about to enter its final stage, and the floating population rushing to the four sides gathers into a dense network, and the dark surge of viruses has set off a storm in it. After constructing the basic work framework, Ming Weijie and students immediately released information on recruiting volunteers in the 2019 clinical medicine group. Although the news was first released to classmates in this school, Ming Weijie hopes to use the reposting among students to convene more students from majors such as Xin Chuan, computer, nursing, and medicine. Within 24 hours after the announcement, the WeChat reminder of Mingweijie's mobile phone rang almost continuously, and more than 120 students from all over the world joined the volunteer team chat. This made Ming Weijie deeply touched: "I see that Wuhan classmates are participating immediately, with the support of so many people, it is warm." Whether it is on the front line of rescue or the seemingly calm rear, the time has become The most precious resource. He immediately began to prepare knowledge training for the first batch of volunteers.

From the beginning as a class teacher, Ming Weijie has in charge of 8^th medical students batch from the International School. Because he has several jobs, his timetable is always filled with scientific research, practice, and further studies. The solid concept of time is like a clock built into the brain, toggling every plan from 7 am to 4 am the next day. Ming Weijie wants to convey his high demands to his students. "I was most impressed by Dr. Ming. It was the first time the class had a voice meeting. He said he would be stricter than other teachers because he wanted us to learn something." Wu Yixun recalled. Even though the time is always tight, Ming Weijie has never missed any team-building activities in these years and listened carefully to classmates' requests. During the epidemic, in addition to scientific research and the work of the popular science team, Ming Weijie also helped the students from the Xinchuan Institute to review the medical knowledge in the interactive game "Epidemic Prevention Simulator". In his view, the current classmates trying to do popular science games will have an advantage over himself at that time, and he has no reason not to support it.

 

 

 

 On January 22, on the 28th of the new year, Ming Weijie had just returned home. In the past few years, he has been traveling between Guangzhou and Shenzhen and stays at home for very little time. Hong Kong has the custom of "cleaning the sloppy year after year," that is, cleaning the house to eliminate disasters and diseases. The training preparation for the volunteer team has just started. While cleaning, he talked to several students on a voice call to discuss the training content. At 10 pm, the training materials were finally ready. Ming weijie kept sending the organized PPT screenshots to the WeChat group with voice explanation. The latest authoritative news, to quickly and accurately deliver the clinical manifestations and prevention methods of New Coronary Pneumonia, to save more people from ignorance and panic, is the core concept of the popular science team. In the following time, the popular science team is devoted to scientific epidemic prevention knowledge, translation of relevant literature, and other related work. The information is shared in real-time to online documents or pushed in the form of a public account to answer questions for the public. Ming Weijie is mainly responsible for the overall planning, external contact, and information review.

Choosing the right scientific prevention knowledge from complicated information is a headache. Members of the popular science team gather information everywhere, but they may not be able to distinguish right from wrong accurately. When rumors such as "drinking salt water can eliminate the new crown virus" can be swarmed, the science information verified by professionals is even more valuable. Ming Weijie spends a significant amount of time every day reviewing the messages sent by the team members. Any wrong expressions, even deviations in terms, will be eliminated from him.

According to statistics, as of early February, the volunteer team has served 60,000 people. In Ming Weijie's view, establishing such a popular science team is not only what he should do, but also what students should do. "Because social resources are usually not evenly distributed, as a person who can obtain specific knowledge in higher education, he should help and contribute to his community through his professional experience.

"Make a difference" has always been the signature of Ming Weijie's circle of friends in his wechat. From the age of 18 to 35, from SARS to the new coronavirus, he has been using his actual actions to confirm this sentence in every public health event, large or small. Ming Weijie watched the graduated students go to the frontline to help the patients in this epidemic. The students who were studying with him joined the work of the popular science team as if they were watching themselves over the years.

On May 1st International Labor Day, Ming Weijie participated in the public health policy research report "Will the public health policy affect the shortage of masks?" "As a cover story, officially published in the international medical journal" Lancet "sub-Journal of EClinicalMedicine. Up to now, Ming Weijie has published 3 papers related to new coronary pneumonia in the world's top medical journals. The following is our conversation on related topics.

 Reporter: Why did you initially have the idea of doing these studies?

Ming Weijie: In January, when a new virus was born, everyone didn't know much about the disease. As an expert in the School of Public Health, disease prevention and control is my research direction. To promote a health policy, we cannot speak it out of thin air. It must be grounded. We hope that scientific methods can be used to do a little work to promote government health policy prevention.

 Reporter: How did you make a scientific guess about the disease?

Ming Weijie: Usually in disease prevention, we will use mathematical models. The real situation is not known until after something happens, but it is too late to do things after things happen, so we use a mathematical model. Make inferences or inferences before things happen, and see how to reduce the incidence of disease and better allocate medical resources after taking certain sanitary measures. The ultimate goal is how to control the disease. At the beginning of the disease, we faced the disease and did not know its characteristics. At that time, we estimated the impact of the disease on society based on some very limited data.

 Reporter: What information did you have at the beginning of the study? What was the first study mainly about?

Ming Weijie: At that time, our information was actually very limited. At the time, we knew that the new coronavirus was very different from SARS. If not controlled, the number of people infected would be extremely high. SARS is a limited infection, and it will be infectious when it develops to a certain extent. And this time we will have a lot of asymptomatic infections. At a very early stage, a person who has just been infected for a short time can be transmitted to others. And one can be transmitted to 3-5 people, is a very fast speed.

At that time, everyone did not realize that this virus would greatly consume medical resources. So our first research is to do how (public health policy) affects the medical system, which tells us that if the new coronavirus is not well controlled, the medical system will be under a lot of pressure, and even cannot cope. On January 28th, we had reached this conclusion, which was the first published in the world. 

 Reporter: How long did it take for this study to reach a conclusion on January 28 from the beginning to the conclusion?

Ming Weijie: Normally, a research usually takes half a year to a year from design to completion. At the time, we contacted the University of Hong Kong and the Imperial College of Technology together to complete this thesis in about 10 days.

In general, a study cannot be completed so quickly. However, based on the rapid development of the epidemic situation, the sooner scientific support and empirical evidence can be obtained, the sooner it will influence decision-making. So we carry out high-intensity work, which is basically a 24-hour shift. My students and I are in the Chinese time zone, while British scholars are in the zero time zone, which is 8 hours slower than us. In order to communicate smoothly, I usually work until 4 in the morning. In fact, it is a very normal thing, and we don't have much time, just to go all out to make the research results as soon as possible.

Reporter: How effective is the research forecast?

Ming Weijie: In March, many countries around the world showed a shortage of medical resources. Our predictions can be notified to medical institutions and medical decision-making departments early so that they can be deployed as soon as possible. At the time, we also expected that in the Wuhan area, about 10,000 beds would be needed to cope with the disease. Finally, from the real data, including the Ark Hospital, it is indeed about 10,000 beds that can just cope with this disease.

The other is about mask research. In February, there was a shortage of masks in my country, and the epidemic in foreign countries had not yet erupted, so this study was very early. We want to know that the shortage of masks can be alleviated in a few months. At that time, we predicted that in May, the shortage of masks in China could be solved. And now you can see that we basically have no problem buying masks.

The advantage of the mathematical model is that it can roughly predict the future use of medical resources. This will help our government to make decisions and adopt policies for medical institutions.

 Reporter: Your thesis that guides students is also published in the journal. Can you introduce this?

Ming Weijie: In the field of preventive medicine, medical students were rarely mentioned in the past. Taking this opportunity this time, some students are working with me to complete scientific research projects. In this process, let them know that in addition to the doctors on the front line, a group of public health experts and medical personnel are needed to provide advice for the national policy, so as to provide better policies for the front line. I hope to train my classmates from the other side. When they face the challenges of new diseases in the future, they will be able to combine medical knowledge with the public health knowledge they have learned this time and play their roles in different fields in the future.

 Reporter: As you said in an interview before, doctors can save one person at a time, and public health policies can affect a group of people, many people.

Ming Weijie: That's right. Yes, it is the same concept. I was originally a doctor of clinical medicine. At that time, I just discovered a problem, and I could only save a limited number of people. Even if I go to the front, there are only ten or eight patients each time. This is certainly worth it. But there is also a need for a group of doctors to better plan the prevention policy. I hope that I can assume this responsibility and mission. In addition to the frontline, preventive medicine can also help more people. This time students can understand what kind of work they can do in preventive medicine.

【責任編輯：曹競】