Residents of China’s Wuhan yesterday said they were hopeful for the future and no longer afraid of COVID-19, three years after the city was locked down over what was then a mysterious virus.
Since Beijing ordered Wuhan sealed off in a bid to suffocate the outbreak in January 2020, COVID-19 has devastated the planet, killing millions and plunging the global economy into turmoil.
However, life is now back to normal for many across the globe and after almost three years of grueling lockdowns and mandatory mass testing, Beijing last month lifted its hardline “zero COVID-19” policy.
Photo: AFP
As China celebrated Lunar New Year this week, Wuhan was unrecognizable compared with the apocalyptic scenes that gripped the city of 11 million in early 2020.
Locals braved icy temperatures to pack busy markets and families — some not wearing masks — bought toys and threw stones along the Yangtze River.
Many told reporters that they were elated that life was returning to normal.
“The new year will of course be better,” Yan Dongju, a cleaner in her 60s, told reporters. “We are not afraid of the virus anymore.”
“Now that we have opened up, everyone is quite happy,” delivery driver Liang Feicheng said, wearing glasses and a black mask to keep warm.
“A lot of our worries and depression have all slowly been resolved,” he added. “People are going about their lives, coming together with family and friends, going out to play and travel and being happy.”
The January 2020 decision to lock down the city, announced in the middle of the night, took Wuhan’s residents by surprise as the world watched on with uncertainty.
For 76 days, Wuhan was cut off from the world, with residents holed up in their homes for fear of being infected as hospitals overflowed with patients.
However, the horrifying scenes which marked the world’s first COVID-19 lockdown are now a thing of the past.
Outside a shop where Agence France-Presse captured the scene of a man who lay dying in the street in January 2020 — in an image that would become a symbol of the world’s fight against COVID-19 — a sign for a new school on the second floor reads “House of Hope.”
However, in a cogent reminder of the fraught geopolitics that would emerge as the virus spread across the globe, Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market — once suspected of being the epicenter of the outbreak — remains closed.
The area around the once-bustling wet market was desolate when reporters visited yesterday, although a police vehicle kept watch.
China, relatively unscathed for years after its initial outbreaks thanks to draconian “zero COVID-19” measures, has faced its biggest-ever case surge in recent weeks.
About 80 percent of the population is believed to have contracted COVID-19 since health restrictions were lifted last month, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou (吳尊友) said.
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