As the world grapples with the escalating coronavirus pandemic, China reopened the city of Wuhan on Wednesday, allowing its 11 million residents to leave for the first time in over two months, a milestone in its effort to combat the outbreak.
Beijing -
But at least up to January 16, Wuhan's government said that no new cases of the disease had occurred for about two weeks, and the city continued as normal. Diners packed restaurants, shoppers flocked to commercial districts, and travellers headed to train stations and airports for their Lunar New Year holidays.
Leading the group was 83-year-old Zhong Nanshan, an epidemiologist credited with raising the alarm in China about the spread of another coronavirus, SARS, in 2003. Over two days, the team investigated the source and scale of Wuhan's outbreak, inspecting the seafood and wildlife market and other sites.
That cast doubt over local authorities' previous assertions that there was no substantial evidence of human-to-human transmission, which would have required them to impose drastic containment measures on the city. On January 19, the group of about a half dozen scientists returned to Beijing, where they reported their findings to the National Health Commission, which formulates China's health policy.
Wuhan officials, he said, reacted far too late. "If the government had sent out a notice, if they had asked everyone to wear masks, to do temperature checks, maybe a lot fewer people would have died."Later tracing of virus patients showed that people confirmed to have the virus travelled from Wuhan to at least 25 provinces, municipalities and administrative regions across China before the lockdown plan went into action.
But access into and out of the city was quickly closed off, with public transportation shut down and the use of private cars banned. Residents were soon after restricted to their homes.
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