Wuhan is lifted lockdown, the hero returns!
On April 8th, Chinese standard time, Wuhan opened outbound channels allowing people to leave the city. Wuhan, which was locked for 76 days, finally was lifted lockdown! It was China’s endless four-month struggle against the novel coronavirus that brings to this success.
Looking back on this anti-epidemic course, we are going through a century problem. But with the worldwide people worked together, the epidemic was come over in the end. On March 6, more than 40,000 medical personnel supporting Wuhan across the country, and achieved “zero“ infection. On March 17, the Chinese national medical team who is supporting Hubei began to evacuate successively. And on April 8, Wuhan ends the 76-day lock of the city, Officially lifted lockdown.
At the beginning of the COVID-19, Wuhan was both in concern and a frightening battle. On the one hand, Wuhan needs the support of a large number of medical personnel and supplies. On the other hand, it is necessary to avoid the spread and infection of the virus. In this crucial time, the central government made the decision to lock the city, which has been proved to be timely and necessary. The largest scale “lock city”, coupled with emergency response measures in various regions, has significantly slowed the growth rate of the epidemic.
The measure has been analyzed by research institutes around the world, and the authoritative academic journal “Science” has published a model analysis, which is made by 15 top global research institutions. The paper points out that the “locking city” in Wuhan and Hubei seems to be the largest isolation event in human history. This effect is significant. For China, the closure of Wuhan has slowed down the rate of the new coronavirus outbreak. It gave China 3-5 days of preparation time, which is critical to control the risk.
The measure has a greater reflection effect to the world. Till mid-February, the closure of the city has prevented the world from nearly 80% of imported cases. The model also shows that imported cases in other countries in the world decreased by 77% in early February.
Over the last two months, 1.4 billion Chinese people have fought together against the epidemic. Not only the medical personnel but also the ordinary people contributed their efforts, we are all participants in this battle and the strong backing for Wuhan. Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, also highly praised: “Wuhan has brought hope to the world, and even the most serious situation can be reversed.” The French Consul General in Wuhan also wrote a letter to Wuhan to thank for the donated mask and the kind sympathy.
In Western countries, due to the differences in system and social nature, the measures taken in the epidemic are totally different. For example, when the situation of COVID-19 is still unclear, the US government advocates returning to work and declares that the “inflection point” is coming. It made the prevention measure face repeated deterioration and great risk. Also, the sharp rise and fall of the US stock market in March is actually a reflection of the market’s anxiety. All these situations combined with the US social environment may be justifiable. For China, its actions are fully in line with the nature of socialism with Chinese characteristics and have proved to be effective. Now the country is in recovery step by step.