Hi everybody. In light of the recent coronavirus outbreak, we've produced some short episodes with people in various locations around the world. And in this first episode, I actually take a break from hosting and webinar vet, founder and CEO Anthony Chadwick interviews his longtime friend Alistair Hodson Moore.

Based out in China and can give us a true insight of what's really been going on out there from the horse's mouth, so to speak. We hope you're all staying safe and well, and we really do thank you for doing every bit that you can to follow the government guidelines and keep yourself and everybody else safe in this very unprecedented time. Take care and enjoy your lesson.

Hello everyone, Anthony Chadwick from the webinar vets, and I'm very pleased and fortunate to have Alastair Dodson Moore with us, who is residing at the moment in Shanghai, is working for the Concordia Veterinary practise in Shanghai, been there, I think, for a year or two now, obviously well known in England, in Britain, as a very good surgeon, if you don't mind me saying, Alistair, and, but, but obviously, you know, being stuck in the middle of this problem really since the beginning, maybe. Don't mind, just take us through the process of how you became aware of the coronavirus problem, when you think it really started to strike, and, you know, how it's, how it's kind of affected you. Yeah, I came to China about 18 months ago now to start to lead this new hospital in Shanghai.

Paula, my wife joined me about 15 months ago, and we've had some interesting and illuminating times. So around the middle of January. In January, we began to hear that there was something untoward happening in, Wuhan, which is the city at the, the centre of the epidemic in a, in a province called Hubei.

We were actually, we were a little excited ourselves at the time, because we were heading off to Australia, to a friend's wedding, Michael Day, you might, some of you will know him. So, he was, he was having some celebrations in Australia. So, we went off there in the middle of January, and we, we came back 2.

Thing of January. And it was just beginning to here, to, to know that there was stuff happening. It seemed to be confined to Wuhan at that stage, and it was obviously a concern to to people in China.

But even then, the feeling was that this was a local problem. And in fact, actually towards the end of that month, which is Chinese New Year, was around the turn of January to February. I was working.

And actually Paula had, Paula found a trip off to central China, and she signed up as I was confined to base, and she went off, flew off to central China to do a tour. Paula Paula went off towards the end of January to this tourist trip in central China, quite exciting sort of Chinese Tibet, but Chinese. Anyway, as soon as she got off the plane, she had a message from the tour group saying there's some problems with some of the sites we're planning to visit are going to be closed because of Chinese controls because of this new infection, and some of the hotels are going to be difficult, so you can carry on or go home, and she thought, well, I may as well carry on because it's all arranged.

And actually 2 days into the tour, they, they said no actually everybody's got to go home. So, she came scuttling back here. So that would be, as I said, at the very beginning of February.

And immediately within 3 or 4 days, it was clear that coming and going from China was going to be difficult. Travel within China was closing down very quickly. It was clear that they wanted to contain this to that.

Province, it was already outside Wuhan into other cities in Hubei, but they took the view that they could control it and keep it in that province by controlling travel inside China. And it became apparent to us that that would soon lead to travel difficulties coming and going from China. And actually we had already planned for Paula to go back to the UK for some time later in February for for some family support.

So we decided very quickly over the. Of 48 hours that actually if she was going to go, she should go now. You'll recall British Airways at about the same time, British Airways said, we're shutting up shop.

Other airlines were beginning to, avoid China. And, so we got Paula, a ticket about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and by midnight she was flying out of China on a China Airline and off she went, come back. She came back, 12 days ago.

So she's been, away. For most of this time. But yes, so there was a rapid, a rapid change in that time between the middle to end of January and the beginning of February when Chinese authorities realised that something was a serious problem.

And what's been the problem like in in Shanghai where obviously you've been based? What, what has been the process and what has the government been doing? There has been a low number of Shanghai is an enormous city.

If, if you're not, if people are unaware, Shanghai is, I don't know about the 4th biggest city in China. There's a couple of cities that nobody's ever heard of that are just enormous. We're about 27 to 32 million people, depending on how you count.

There's been something like 30 or 400 cases in Shanghai. So actually, the numbers have been very low. But the effect has been through the precautions that the government have required.

And in addition, the precautions that people have imposed upon themselves. And I think we'll talk a bit more about this in a few minutes. So what happened, as, as you all know, travel became within China, was closed down pretty quickly.

Trains stopped running, buses required temperature checks, and then stopped running. Airlines started to have restrictions. And at the same time, so where were we?

So wait, so there's Chinese New Year. End of January, beginning of February, and that goes on for about a week or so of, holidays and, and the first thing that the Chinese government did was across China, they said, we're gonna have another week public holiday. So they, everything's closed down for Chinese New Year, pretty much.

We, our hospitals open because we agreed we'd be open. Most other businesses are closed, even a lot of restaurants are closed for Chinese New Year, because a lot of people leave Shanghai. Yeah, a lot, a lot of people who work here in those sort of businesses go to their hometowns.

They, they don't feel they're permanent residents of Shanghai. So it was closed anyway, and then it had another week of public holiday closure, across China. Shanghai, then, they, they had a 3rd week, and this was true of most of China, they had a 3rd week, which, again, everything was closed, but the government said this isn't a public holiday, but we were quite Businesses to close offices.

Are people still walking on the streets and things at this point. It stops pretty quick. I mean, Shanghai is quiet over Chinese New Year anyway, because so many people.

It's not, it's not a public holiday, like you see in Hong Kong, where people dancing in the streets and lion dances and stuff. That doesn't really happen in Shanghai. There's one or two focal points, but, mostly it's family time and a lot of people leave the city and or they're just at home with their family.

So it's quite. Anyway, but it remained quiet. And very soon after that, and I'm thinking back now to when Paula had left, the streets quickly became pretty empty places, partly because things were closed.

Shops, most shops weren't closed. Shanghai runs on home delivery anyway, at the best of times. There was a bit of a glitch with home delivery, because a lot of those people who run around on the scooters were out of town, out of time.

Yeah. So it's a bit of a glitch with that, and on, you know, we do online shopping for our groceries and, there was, there was a, a delay at that stage because people were stuck out of town. But not only had the government required businesses to shut, required restaurants, many of them to shut, but people just decided they weren't going to do these things.

The streets were empty because people, it wasn't that they had been told not to go out. They weren't going to work, but they, they just didn't want to go out. Parks was parks were shut.

Chinese people on weekends like to go to the park, particularly when the sun's shining in Shanghai. And they were, they were shut early on. Just everything now, where people would congregate.

So as a As an example, and this is just finishing now, but if you were seen to be in a group of 15 or 20 people in one place, you would be questioned by either the security guards that are outside every housing estate compound as expats or by passing policemen. You would get, you would get moved on if you're in a group. Some restaurants stayed open, and you, you could go and eat, but you had to, the tables had to be set 2 metres apart, but most restaurants closed simply either because they were asked to, or because they had no customs.

You know, whereas in the UK now, pubs have been, and restaurants have been told to close. Well, some, some restaurants were told to close, but actually most restaurants just closed because nobody was going. The big effect has been the precautions, the change in the change in the way people behave.

But why do you think, potentially the problem's been a bigger problem in Italy, have they been less strict in, in enforcing stuff early on, maybe than the Chinese? Well, for sure they have, and I think it looks like it had been become more widespread in Italy before anyone really said. At all.

We've all seen speculation that it relates to the older age of people in those areas of Italy where it started. That seems quite logical. There could be, could be other biological differences, of course, between different groups of people and their mortality rates.

Of course. And now coming through the other side, obviously I was noticing no cases in Wuhan over the last few days. What's happening in Shanghai.

So we've had no cases from people living in Shanghai, I think for about 10 days. The cases we've had in Shanghai for for that time have all been in arrivals, either people arriving from other parts of China, and although Wuhan has is locked down, still locked down, of course there are always a few people.