Who says there is no good news coming out of the coronavirus pandemic? A man in China who has had amnesia for 30 years claims he was cured by the coronavirus. Is this a real corona extra?

“Thirty years ago, 27-year-old Zhu Jiaming was injured at work and suffered memory loss in Fujian Province, southeast China. He was not able to return home because he had forgotten his name and where he came from.”

So begins the story of Zhu Jiaming. China Plus and The Qianjiang Evening News report that Zhu left his home in Guizhou Province in south-western China in 1990 for a construction job in the central province of Hubei. (Yes, Wuhan – ground zero for the coronavirus – is the capitol of Hubei.) Unfortunately, he was soon involved in a serious accident that resulted in brain damage that left him with what seemed to be permanent amnesia. Even worse, he lost his ID and ended up living on the street. Things did not look good for this poor amnesiac man who didn’t even know his own name.

“Mr. Tan and his wife from Zhejiang Province took him in to avoid Zhu being homeless. For the past 30 years, Zhu has lived with Tan’s family in Yunhe County in east China’s Zhejiang Province.”

Luckily, there are good people in the world like Mr. Tan, whose family took in the homeless man and, when they realized he had no family because he couldn’t remember them, ‘adopted’ Zhu. He stayed with them, even when they moved to another area of China. Not knowing his true identity, they became his family. Zhu says that tiny pieces of his memory came back, but nothing about his name nor his hometown that could help him find his way back.

Then came the coronavirus.

Like so many people, Zhu was confined to his home and spent his days and nights watching coronavirus news coverage on TV — something he never would had done had he not been quarantined by COVID19. One day, he saw an item about Guizhou and suddenly a flood of memories were unlocked. He realized that he grew up in Chishui City, Guizhou Province, and that he had parents, brothers and sisters that had not heard from him in 30 years. Would they remember him … if they’re still alive?

On February 28, Zhu went to the local police station for help. They found records that a man named through the Fuxing Town Police Station in Chishui City, that a Zhu Jiaming had been reported missing for years. They contacted his family there and arranged a video reunion.

“I almost thought I couldn’t see you, just still, just still …”

Zhu Jiaming’s 83-year-old mother and four siblings are still alive but his father died 18 years ago. This being China and the country still locked in a coronavirus shutdown, officials are negotiating his return and face-to-face reuniting with his true family. In the meantime, people starved for any kind of good news finally have some.

And it was all thanks to the coronavirus.