WUHAN (CHINA) – There are hundreds of shoppers at a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan on a weekday morning in December, vying with one another to buy live fish, frogs and turtles apart from fresh vegetables.
It is almost a year since the city reported the outbreak of the pandemic in one of its wet markets. While other nations are struggling with the virus, Wuhan is back to normal.
“I’m not afraid, what is there to be afraid of?” said Nie Guangzhen, a fish and vegetable vendor.
Nie and others are busy gutting fish for buyers, some of whom are without face masks, while city cleaners spray disinfectant on the pavements.
The nation first alerted the WHO about 27 cases of “viral pneumonia” in Wuhan on Dec. 31. The local authorities shut down a wet market in the city the following day after finding that some patients were either shopkeepers or dealers.
Infections soon surged to 50,000 cases, including almost 4,000 deaths. Officials took quick action by imposing a tough 76-day lockdown, setting up miles of yellow barricades along the city’s deserted streets to keep people indoors and businesses shuttered.
Those preventive measures yielded results as the city has not recorded not one case of the coronavirus in months and it is now indistinguishable from other Chinese cities with crowded shopping streets, traffic snarls and jam-packed eateries.
“I really missed these more fun and exciting times, like going out shopping and eating with my friends,” said 27-year-old shopper Hu Hang on Monday.
The recovery of the city contrasts sharply with other leading economies as the holiday season approaches.