| In China’s long battle with the coronavirus, this week is supposed to be a victory lap.
On Wednesday, April 8, the central Chinese city of Wuhan — where the pathogen first emerged last December—will be released from mass quarantine. Trains will start departing the city again, its international airport will come back to life, and its 11 million people will rejoin the national workforce.
Workers wearing facemasks make a barbecue at a market in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on April 4.
Photographer: NOEL CELIS/AFP
The re-opening of Wuhan, perhaps now one of China’s most globally famous places for all the wrong reasons, is a crucial moment for the government’s narrative of triumph over the pandemic. When the city’s borders were sealed shut on Jan. 23, few western countries were paying close attention to the outbreak. Now entire nations from Italy to India have been placed under mass quarantine as the virus races around the world.
Doubts abound, for good reason, over the official data that China has released on the scale of its epidemic. But the re-opening of Wuhan is real, tangible evidence that containment is possible and life after the lockdown is within reach. For cities across Europe and the U.S. now enduring their darkest days in scenes that echo Wuhan’s early devastation, there is hope there.
This week, our reporters on the ground will tell the story of the embattled city’s slow, painful progress toward recovery.
People are starting to leave their residential compounds again, but barbed wire remains coiled along the walls—placed there months ago to stop people trying to climb out. Malls are open again, but salespeople say they’re secretly relieved that there are few customers: contact with strangers now always carries the risk of infection.
One 34-year-old small business owner returns to a boulevard he used to frequent every weekend for carefree hangouts with friends. Now he gets panic attacks he never used to experience before and can’t really explain.
Pockets of infection continue to be reported, most chillingly of those with no symptoms.
Still, Wuhan is standing. And its people are moving forward, one day at a time.—Rachel Chang |