“We are no longer afraid!”: the inhabitants of Wuhan declare on Monday that they have resumed a completely normal life, three years after the start of the traumatic confinement of the city which had signaled the start of the pandemic.
The metropolis of 11 million people, located in central China, began to be hit at the end of 2019 by what was then only an unknown virus, resulting in pneumonia in a growing number of inhabitants.
On January 23, 2020, the authorities ordered the city to be shut down to stop the epidemic. The virus was going to cause millions of deaths on the planet and laminate the world economy.
But life has since resumed in most countries. And after three years of confinements, mandatory quarantines and screenings, China lifted almost all of its health restrictions in December.
On Monday, nothing reminds Wuhan of the apocalyptic atmosphere of 2020. Despite an icy wind, residents take advantage of the Lunar New Year holidays to go to the markets or walk along the Yangtze River.
Pensioners indulge in some stretching, while some Wuhanese fly kites in somewhat foggy weather.
“The new year that is starting will of course be better. We are no longer afraid of the virus!” Yan Dongju, a maintenance worker in her sixties, told AFP.
“The House of Hope»
A little further on, a young food delivery man on a scooter nods.
“Everyone has returned to normal life. People get together with family, friends, go out to have fun, travel… They have found their smiles again, ”explains Liang Feicheng to AFP between two orders.
“The worries and fears that we may have had have subsided,” he says, equipped with glasses and a face mask to protect himself from the biting cold.
The confinement in January 2020, announced in the middle of the night and put in place a few hours later, took the inhabitants by surprise.
And the rest of the world, eyes glued to the streaming news channels, anxiously followed in real time the onset of what would become a global epidemic.
Stations and airports closed, roads blocked, transport stopped and businesses padlocked: for 76 days, Wuhan found itself cut off from the world, with residents holed up in their homes and hospitals overwhelmed with patients.
But the chaos of January 2020 is now far away.
In front of a store where AFP had taken the photo of a dead man lying on a sidewalk, the name of a school now installed in the building (“The House of Hope”) seems to wink at the fate.
Market closed
The former site of the Huanan Seafood Market, once suspected of being the epicenter of contamination, closed permanently in 2020.
On Monday, large sky blue barriers still surrounded the disused complex, in front of which a police car was parked, AFP noted.
China, long considered a haven of health peace due to draconian measures against the virus, has been facing its most significant epidemic rebound in recent weeks.
About 80% of the Chinese population have contracted Covid since the lifting of health restrictions in December, according to epidemiologist Wu Zunyou, a figure in his country in the fight against the virus.
China reported this weekend at least 13,000 additional deaths “related to COVID-19” between January 13 and 19.
This figure, which only concerns deaths reported in hospitals, is in addition to the approximately 60,000 deaths since December, previously announced by the authorities.
This assessment is undoubtedly underestimated for a population of 1.4 billion inhabitants, while many hospitals and crematoriums in the country still appear overwhelmed.