Residents of China’s Wuhan on Monday said they were hopeful for the future and no longer afraid of Covid-19, three years after the city went into lockdown over a then-mystery virus.
Since Beijing ordered Wuhan on lockdown in January 2020 to stifle the outbreak, Covid has ravaged the planet, killing millions and throwing the global economy into turmoil.
But life is now back to normal for many around the world, and after nearly three years of grueling lockdowns and mandatory mass testing, Beijing last month lifted its strict zero-Covid policy.
As China celebrated the Lunar New Year this week, Wuhan was unrecognizable compared to the apocalyptic scenes that gripped the city of 11 million in early 2020.
Locals braved the freezing temperatures to fill busy markets, and families — some didn’t wear masks — shopped for toys and threw stones along the Yangtze River.
Many told AFP they were delighted that life was returning to normal.
“Of course, the new year will be better,” Yan Dongju, a cleaner in her 60s, told AFP.
“We are no longer afraid of the virus.”
“Now that we’re open, everyone is very happy,” said delivery driver Liang Feicheng, who wears glasses and a black face mask to keep warm.
“A lot of our worries and depressions have been slowly dissipating,” he added.
“People go about their lives, get together with family and friends, go out to play and travel and be happy.”
– ‘House of Hope’-
The January 2020 decision to lockdown the city in the middle of the night caught Wuhan residents by surprise while the world looked on with uncertainty.
For 76 days, Wuhan was cut off from the world and residents hid in their homes for fear of contagion while hospitals were overflowing with patients.
But the horrifying scenes that marked the world’s first Covid lockdown are now a thing of the past.
A sign for a new one is on the second floor outside a store where AFP captured the scene of a man dying in the street in January 2020 – in an image that would become a symbol of the global fight against Covid School: “House of Hope”.
The story goes on
But in a compelling reminder of the tense geopolitics that would ensue as the virus spreads around the world, the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan – once suspected of being the epicenter of the outbreak – remains closed.
The area around the once-busy Wet Market was desolate when AFP paid a visit Monday despite a police car on guard.
– Over a billion infected –
China, which has remained relatively unscathed for years after its initial outbreaks thanks to draconian zero-Covid measures, has faced its biggest spike in cases on record in recent weeks.
About 80 percent of the population has been infected with Covid since the health restrictions were lifted in December, according to leading epidemiologist Wu Zunyou.
On Saturday, China reported at least 13,000 Covid-related deaths in just under a week.
That figure, which includes only deaths reported in hospitals, comes on top of the approximately 60,000 deaths since December previously reported by authorities.
But it’s probably a huge underestimate for a population of 1.4 billion, and Beijing’s official case list is no longer believed to reflect reality.
bur-sbr-is/oho/two
Comments are closed.