‘Touching white lies’: A Chinese family lied to each other about their whereabouts until they accidentally ended up in the same Covid-19 hospital

The daughter was a nurse who had been transferred from Nanjing and did not want to worry her parents

The parents worked in Shanghai and both had caught Covid-19, but did not tell their daughter

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A nurse who goes by the pseudonym Jiaying poses with her father who ended up in the same Covid-19 hospital where she works. Photo: Weixin

Published: 6:00pm, 22 Apr 2022

A strange coincidence revealed the white lies members of a family told each other to spare their loved ones from worry as Shanghai continues to battle a severe Covid-19 outbreak in the city.

A couple who lived in Shanghai as migrant workers tested positive for Covid-19, but lied to their daughter, who they thought was working as a nurse in their hometown. They did not want her to worry about them catching the virus.

Little did they know, their daughter had also lied to them and happened to be working in the same makeshift hospital where they were sent for treatment.

“I did not dare to have video calls with my mum because this place looks different from where I live in Nanjing,” said the nurse, who used the pseudonym Jiaying in a report by Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation on Monday.

“I realised in the phone call that she had a stuffy nose, and she later told me she had a mild fever for several days. I asked where she was, and she said she was in a fangcang,” Jiaying said, referring to the name used to describe China’s makeshift hospitals for treating Covid-19 patients.

Jiaying and her colleagues meet with her father in a Covid-19 isolation hospital. Photo: Weixin

She explained that, once she found out her parents were in a fangcang she “had to tell my mother the truth”.