Wuhan, the great Chinese city that was suddenly isolated and closed overnight after being the first to suffer from the virus that still hangs over the world, is still trying to recover its life with great caution, amid long-lasting wounds time to overcome them.
At ten o’clock in the morning, on January 23, 2020, this city of 11 million inhabitants woke up completely closed, with closed entrances, deserted streets and people trapped in their homes, amid the fear of disease. of which little was known.
In the first moments of unprecedented isolation, some were still able to go out to buy food in the few shops that remained open, but soon they too closed and no one moved from its four walls in a few weeks.
The worst days came: the sick multiplied and the hospitals, without enough means or staff to fight an almost unknown virus at the time, could not provide enough care for all citizens who had symptoms.
Many returned home without a clear diagnosis, and some died there without even knowing what, or suffered the disease alone and in silence, with little information about its scope or possible consequences.
THE PANIC OF THE UNKNOWN AND OF HUNGER
The fear of the unknown and the lack of food were the main concern of the Wuhan people in those first weeks, according to the testimonies collected by Efe these days among the dozens of inhabitants of the city.
In the early stages, with food stores closed and everyone limited, the authorities had not yet managed to organize the huge logistical operation of food delivery in every house in the city, so many people remember their hunger.
In addition, they were the first to encounter a new virus that was initiated with them, with almost no previous experience other than acute and severe respiratory syndrome (SARS), another disease caused by a coronavirus that affected China in 2013.
“People didn’t have any information, they didn’t know what the virus was or how it could be contracted, and that caused a lot of anxiety,” psychologist Li Geng, who volunteered tirelessly during the closure with Wuhan, told Efe.
“It was like facing something invisible and unpredictable, I didn’t know if we would all catch it all at once or if one day we could leave the house,” says Yu Xingwen, a young medical student. who spent prison with her family on the 23rd floor of one of the thousands of apartment towers that populate Wuhan.
Among those who contracted the covid, the problem was another problem, explains the psychologist Li: “they were afraid of death or of the consequences that the disease could leave, unknown then, some still now”.
When you are hospitalized, at least you have the company of medical staff and the confidence to know yourself in the hands of professionals, but when you are alone at home or – at best – with family members, any strange symptoms turn into an alert. annoying.
“MY FATHER DIED ALONE IN HIS HOUSE”
“My father died alone at home, I don’t blame anyone, there were no beds in hospitals and every day a doctor came to see him, they did their best to treat him, but he was older and could not be” Wei Douyong (fictional name) says Efe), 45 years old, one of the few people who dared to detail the suffering of those terrible days.
Wei’s mother died two years earlier, and his 78-year-old father had been living alone in an apartment in Wuhan, although his son had been looking for an alternative housing solution for months.
These terrible moments lasted just over a week, the time it took for China to build the Huoshenshan field hospital, one of two it built in record time in the city, with prefabricated modules to alleviate the lack of hospital beds.
On February 2, when the Huoshenshan construction was completed in ten days, the Chinese army was already transporting materials and medical personnel to Wuhan for its opening the next day.
Then there were hundreds of doctors and health workers from several Chinese provinces, in addition to protective equipment, masks and supplies needed by medical staff, who in the early days worked tirelessly to eat or even go to the toilet due to lack of protection. replacement suits.
The psychologist tells us that when the closure ended on April 8, some doctors and nurses were horrified to remember the terrible moments they experienced.
“It’s common in a traumatic situation. You’d rather not remember and look ahead instead of turn around,” he explains.
You just have to talk to everyone on the streets of Wuhan for a while to feel something similar: most people don’t want to talk and the one who agrees immediately goes over the memories to highlight how “the city is doing well now.” the vast majority consider him “the safest in the world.”
And there was another category of psychological suffering, says Li: that of those who suffered the disease and were healed, but they fear that they will be rejected, that people will not accept them or will hang the stigma of covid forever.
“We treated many of these cases during quarantine, but also after and even now, it is a persistent concern,” says the psychotherapist.
A SWIMMER WHO ENSURED HIS CLOSURE IN YANGTSE
Since April 8, Wuhan has been reborn little by little and now it is again an almost normal city, with a cultural and lively night life, although no one takes off their mask and the caution is palpable in every moment and in every conversation.
There are still many wounds to heal, and the capital of Hubei is still far from the same as before.
However, many people in Wuhan went out today, despite the cloudy sky, to browse the shopping streets or walk along its beautiful river beaches along the Yangtze River, where fishermen were also seen.
Zou Liang, a 40-year-old Wuhan designer working in the municipal planning department, dared this morning – when the thermometers read 5 degrees – to dive into the cold waters of the Yangtze and swim parallel to the shore for more than half an hour.
“I swam here every day during closing, I bypassed the barriers and commands that come, I really like to swim,” he smiles at Efe as soon as he came out of the water.
Zou is “happy that this has happened” and is not afraid that the virus “could return to Wuhan”, despite the current outbreaks in the north of the country, the worst since March 2020.
“China is very prepared and fights very well with them,” he says, before saying goodbye and sinking back into the waters of the Asian river colossus.