WUHAN, China (AP) – A year ago, a notice sent to smartphones in Wuhan at 2 am announced the world’s first 76-day coronavirus block.
Early Saturday morning, residents of central China, where the virus was first detected, ran and practiced tai chi in a mist-shrouded park beside the mighty Yangtze River.
Life has largely returned to normal in the city of 11 million people, even as the rest of the world struggles with the spread of the most contagious variants of the virus. Efforts to vaccinate people against COVID-19 have been thwarted by disorder and limited supplies in some places. The scourge has killed more than 2 million people worldwide.
Traffic was light in Wuhan, but there was no sign of barriers that a year ago isolated neighborhoods, prevented movement around the city and confined people to their housing estates and even apartments.
Wuhan was responsible for most of the 4,635 deaths caused by COVID-19 in China, a number that has remained static for months. The city has been practically free of new outbreaks since the blockade was lifted on April 8, but doubts remain about the origin of the virus and whether Wuhan and Chinese authorities acted quickly and with sufficient transparency to allow the world to prepare for a pandemic. who fell ill over 98 million.
China announced 107 more cases on Saturday, bringing the total to 88,911. Of these, northern Heilongjiang Province accounted for the largest number, 56. Beijing and the eastern financial center of Shanghai reported three new cases amid mass testing and blockages of hospitals and housing units related to recent outbreaks.
Authorities are concerned about a further increase around next month’s Lunar New Year holiday and are telling people not to travel and avoid meetings as much as possible. Schools are being released a week earlier and many have already switched to online classes. The use of masks remains virtually universal in closed environments and on public transport. Cell phone apps are used to track people’s movements and prove that they are both virus-free and have not been in areas where suspicious cases have been found.
Wuhan has been praised for her sacrifice in the service of the nation, making her a kind of Stalingrad in China’s war against the virus, celebrated in books, documentaries, TV shows and flourishing authorities, including head of state and leader of the Communist Party Xi Jinping.
China has doggedly defended its actions in the early days of the outbreak, saying it helped buy time for the rest of the world while pushing theories that the virus was brought to a city outside China, possibly from a laboratory in the U.S.
After months of negotiations, China finally gave permission last week for the World Health Organization to send a team of international experts to begin investigating the origins of the virus. They are currently in quarantine for two weeks.
A panel of experts commissioned by WHO criticized China and other countries this week for not taking action to contain the initial outbreak earlier, prompting Beijing to admit that it could have done better.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, southern China, thousands of residents were arrested on Saturday in an unprecedented move to stem the escalation of an outbreak in the city.
Hong Kong has been struggling to contain a new wave of coronavirus since November. More than 4,300 cases have been reported in the past two months, representing almost 40% of the city’s total.
Authorities said in a statement that an area consisting of 16 buildings in the working class Yau Tsim Mong district will be closed until all residents have been tested.