A year after the first known cases of coronavirus, covid prevention measures are almost a reminder in Wuhan, although its residents do not forget or wonder how a pandemic began to spread that it still has chess all over the planet.
No cases of local contagion since mid-May, on public transportation in the provincial capital of Hubei, located in the center of the Asian country, it is no longer necessary to present rapid recognition (QR) health codes that guarantee that a person is not infected, and the use of masks has been reduced since the massive confinement the city was subjected to last January.
WUHANESE BELIEVE CONFINITION WAS NECESSARY
By contrast, residents are preparing to give entry to a 2021 that will be marked by a complete confinement of the city for 11 weeks which, according to its inhabitants, was the only possible measure to prevent the covid from spreading even further. and continue to wreak havoc.
“At first, when we read the first news, we didn’t take it seriously. But when it became known that (the coronavirus) was being transmitted between humans we began to understand what was going on and how terrible it could become.” tells Efe a neighbor, Hong, recently retired, who now spends his days flying kites on the banks of the Yangtze River.
His gesture is twisted at the memory of the hardest moments, which he has not yet forgotten. The worst, he says, happened when relatives, friends or co-workers began to become infected, without really knowing what was going on: “In the end, a person or a family is not important. It spread without further ado, from one to the other. others without distinction, and hence the measures they took to control it. “
After 11 weeks sealed, the practical absence of new cases led authorities to lift restrictions in April.
On the sidelines of the confinement, Wuhan managed to reverse the situation thanks to the arrival of material and personnel from other Chinese provinces, strong prevention measures or the express construction of hospitals such as Leishenshan, which begin admitting patients in February.
THE ORIGIN OF VIRUSES, TOPIC TABOO
A young woman who prefers not to give her name adds that many people in the city feel guilty that Wuhan recorded the first cases of the then so-called “mysterious outbreak of pneumonia”, although it affects “almost no one wants to talk- no “.
“In those days, just released 2020, many residents avoided the issue, and many protected each other to avoid knowing who had been infected,” he says.
He believes it will be “very, very difficult” to know what happened or how the pandemic originated but celebrates that, despite some sporadic outbreaks, China has managed to keep it virtually under control, with no more deaths since May. .
He also recalls the confusion that reigned in the early stages of the outbreak, and that it was not until February that city officials acknowledged that it had taken too long to reveal the available information because, they said, they needed the approval of higher instances to make it public.
He also ignores the case of citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who today was sentenced to four years in prison by a Shanghai court for “causing riots and looking for problems” in reporting arrests of other independent reporters and the harassment of relatives of coronavirus victims during the outbreak.
According to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders Organization (CHRD), the woman was arrested several months ago for publishing that citizens of Wuhan had received rotten food during confinement or were forced to pay fees in order to be tested for nucleic acid.
Meanwhile, the official press has raised the narrative that the initial outbreak of the pandemic may have been related to frozen food imports or may have arisen earlier in other countries, at the same time as authorities reiterated their willingness to cooperate with the pandemic. World Health Organization (WHO) for a group of experts to travel to Asia in January to investigate the origin of the virus.
It is unknown whether this trip will stop at the Huan Seafood Market, locked and locked since January 1 this year, and on which the WHO is debating whether “it was the source of pollution, whether it acted as to amplifier for contagion between humans or if it was a combination of these factors “.