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.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese