Filmmaker's short video gives Nanjing virus campaign a leading role

A 10-minute video highlighting how Nanjing, the provincial capital of Jiangsu province, tackled the coronavirus outbreak, has proved to be a major hit in both China and Japan.

The video, Emergent Report: A City That Sees No More New Confirmed Cases by Japanese director Ryo Takeuchi, first hit the Japanese homepage of the website Yahoo! on March 2. Since then, it has appeared on almost all of the major media outlets in Japan, including the public broadcasters TBS, TV Asashi and Fuji Television Network.

As of March 1, Nanjing, where Takeuchi lives, had not reported any new confirmed cases for 11 consecutive days. He decided to record the effective measures which were taken by its residents to combat the epidemic.

When Takeuchi returned from Japan in mid-February, he was quarantined for two weeks at home. After the quarantine was completed, he realized that visitors to his home were required to have their temperature taken and write down assurances that they had not come from high-risk areas and did not exhibit any coronavirus symptoms.

An online platform was also set up for all visitors to the city to log in and note down their identity, arrival time, current address and health condition, enabling the authorities to have a comprehensive knowledge of the city's demographics.

In the same vein, when taking the subway, passengers were required to scan a QR code for registration, which helps to trace suspected cases and anyone that may have come into contact with them.

In public places, signs reminded people of the importance of disinfection, ventilation, hand washing and the wearing of masks.

Most restaurants just offered takeaway food, and some even pasted the name and temperature of the cook and handlers on the package as a guarantee of the food's safety.

Since the reopening of schools has been postponed, Takeuchi's 12-year-old son took online classes recorded by teachers, covering courses such as Chinese, music and physical education.

The company run by Takeuchi and his Chinese wife was asked to prepare facial masks, goggles, alcohol-based disinfectants and other medical protective supplies in the office before the staff members got back to work.

Many other details of the strict measures for disease prevention and control are also recorded in the video, from which, Takeuchi says, he could feel China's strong determination to defeat the deadly epidemic.

"I hope that the video could offer Japan some references," he says.

On Feb 21, Takeuchi's colleagues went to downtown Tokyo and conducted street interviews, to see what young people think about the novel coronavirus. It turned out that most of the 22 interviewees underestimated the seriousness of the virus situation, some of whom even held the belief that there was nothing to be concerned about as the overall case fatality rate is just around 2 percent.

"I was very worried," says Takeuchi. "They don't know, behind the statistics on the death rate, how much effort China has made to cure infected patients and curb the spread of the virus."

Hence, he filmed the video in the hope that Japanese people could take precautions to prevent the virus spreading rapidly.

"I found that many Japanese viewers of the documentary were surprised at the strictness of China's virus-prevention actions, and they thought that Japan should learn something from China," he says.

Beyond his expectation, the video also made a splash in China, notching up more than 10 million views on the Chinese micro-blogging platform, Sina Weibo.

One Chinese user's comment partly explains why the video became so popular in China: "As a Nanjing citizen, I don't even know so many details about virus-control measures because I've been confined indoors for over a month. I hope more authentic records of what's going on in China will be produced to clear up misunderstandings and improve mutual trust between China and other countries."

On March 7, Takeuchi released a post on Sina Weibo to encourage people from across China to contribute video clips about how their cities are fighting against the epidemic.

"I want to show other countries that are facing a severe virus situation how Chinese people have been living their everyday lives during the epidemic," he says.