reemergence
2020 began with Roaring 20s costumes and troubling news pouring in from around the world. There was a seemingly unstoppable fire in Australia, and reports of a terrible virus in China. These news stories told of people dying in untended makeshift hospitals, and a whole city being put on lockdown. Pictures floated in: of empty streets, people walking far from one another wearing masks, and rows of filled hospital beds.
Reports of many people coming down with the flu, and then with pneumonia, began to arise in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of December 2019.
The virus soon began to spread through the city, and on January 23, the Chinese government shut down public transportation and ordered people to not leave the city. Because the threat was not yet understood, Wuhan’s residents continued about their lives until the entire city was placed on lockdown on January 26th. While the people of Wuhan were first hopeful that the lockdown would last only a few weeks, those weeks turned into a month, and then into two.
For six of these weeks, families were completely forbidden from leaving their apartments at all.
But, after weeks of being on full lockdown, the city of Wuhan is finally beginning to resume its normal state. The city will fully reopen, and people will be able to leave, starting April 8th. Already this week, people have begun to leave their homes and walk and exercise in public areas. The public is now allowed to access parks, gardens, and other outdoors areas that were previously closed off.
On Friday, April 3rd, food vendors once again began to sell food on the sidewalk- a small but significant sign that the city is beginning to unfold into its once-lively state.
There are still some struggles. In the first week of April, 5%-10% of people who had tested positive for the virus were testing positive for it again. Many of these people are asymptomatic, but still carrying it, which has led experts to wonder if the COVID-19 pandemic is even close to being over in Wuhan.
For now, social distancing will relax gradually, and not all at once. Many Chinese schools will remain closed for some time, and the residents of Wuhan are still maintaining many social distancing protocols, such as wearing face masks.
Still, spring has come to Wuhan, and the reemergence of an entire population with it. One thousand cherry blossom trees began to bloom the first week of April, and as the people of Wuhan begin to step out their doors and into the city this month, they’ll be able to enjoy them.