Life in Wuhan is back to normal. Inhabitants fear “Covid-19 cases brought from abroad”

A year after the outbreak of the coronavirus outbreak in Chinese Wuhan, life there is back to normal. Residents are no longer afraid of large clusters – they gather at fairs, travel by public transport. However, foreigners raise some concerns among them, because – as the Wuhan people say in an interview with PAP – not all countries are coping with the pandemic equally well.

A year after the first cases of coronavirus were discovered, the inhabitants of Wuhan in China are no longer afraid of large clusters – they go out to the market and travel by subway. They are more concerned about foreigners.

Some townspeople they avoid taking elevators with foreigners or walk away from them on the street. I saw five or six apartments and they refused to rent half of them. The owners said I was a foreigner. The point is, they’re afraid of Covid – said in an interview with PAP an Italian named Iury, who recently moved to Wuhan.

An employee of the real estate agency by the name of Wan told PAP that the decision to choose a tenant is made individually by apartment owners. He assured that foreigners also rent premises through his company. Iury also managed to find a flat without any problems.

Wuhan taxi drivers ask foreigners when they came to China, although almost from the beginning of the pandemic, all persons entering the country are subject to mandatory 14-day isolation. The press reports every day about new “imported cases”, which are detected during quarantine.

With us, the epidemic is basically under control, but we do not know where you are from or what is the situation with the epidemic in your country – explains PAP a driver working in Wuhan for a taxi platform.

The Chinese are particularly critical of the epidemic in the United States, where over 15 million infections and 290,000 deaths. It also fits in with the increasingly tense relations between Beijing and Washington.

State-owned Chinese media picked up foreign press reports suggesting that the virus had been circulating around the world earlier than it was detected in Wuhan. There was even a theory that he could have come to a Chinese city on frozen food imported from abroad.

Wuhan has seen the vast majority of coronavirus infections and deaths from Covid-19 in China. Even after the almost three-month quarantine was lifted, the Wuhan people faced cases of dislike and discrimination in other cities of the country.

It was like that before. But this has changed after widespread testing – says a man named Yan, who runs a cafe in Wuhan. In May, authorities screened nearly all the inhabitants of the city of 11 million for coronavirus, and the Chinese media estimated that it had become possibly the safest place in the world when it comes to the risk of infection.

We compare ourselves to no one. We do not say who is better or worse with the virus. We’re just trying to avoid the epidemic coming back – convinces Wan from the real estate agency.

Wuhan people are aware that nowadays, with almost no restrictions and freedom to travel around the country, the virus can still return to the city. Most people still wear face masks in public places, and they are compulsory in the subway, buses and taxis.

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