Young customs officer fights Covid-19 at Kunming Airport

Flight QV815 from Vientiane, Laos, landed at Kunming Changshui International Airport at 10:10 on March 27. China has seen hundreds of imported Covid-19 cases in the past days.  

When we met Yang Yuan, a customs officer at the airport, she was busy with inspecting passengers on the international flight.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak, she has voluntarily fought the virus at Kunming airport. Yang Yuan said she majored medicine at college, which is conducive to the much-needed quarantine services now.

These days, Yang Yuan and her colleagues almost worked around the clock. Some international flights arrive in Kunming in the small hours, and they usually finished the quarantine inspection at 6:00 or 7:00 am. Returning home, she had to keep away from other family members to prevent infection.

Speaking of her family, Yang confided to us in a soft voice.

Born in 1992, she is already a young mother. To better fight the epidemic, she sent her baby to Baoshan in southwest Yunnan and asked her parents there to help babysit. 

Yang said it is hard and risky to work at the front line, but it is her duty to join the nationwide fight against novel virus. "Through this epidemic, I developed a fuller understanding to my job as a customs officer."

She planned to travel to Thailand with her family during the 2020 Spring Festival, but it was delayed by the epidemic. "I will stick to my job till the Covid-19 is resolved,” said Yang Yuan, hopefully. “Then, I’ll take my son and family to the country of smiles." 

Reporting by Liu Ziyu and Li Wenjun; trans-editing by Wang Shixue