The unprecedented lockdown of China's seventh-largest city to cope with the coronavirus outbreak has turned Wuhan into 'a ghost town,' says one American who lives there.
The race to curb the spread of the new strain of coronavirus that has killed more than 130 people worldwide has triggered a massive public health experiment in China that is being closely watched by health experts around the globe.
But the lockdown orders were likely put into effect too late and could lead to food and medicine shortages that worsen the outbreak, said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. He can leave the grounds through a single gate, if he is wearing a mask, but most friends are unwilling to meet up because of fears of falling ill, he said. More than 3,500 coronavirus cases have been in Hubei, the province of which Wuhan is the capital.
And the most important thing in public health is maintaining the public’s trust so they will cooperate with prevention measures, he added. Some experts hypothesized that China’s response is an overcorrection to its handling of the SARS outbreak in 2003. Chinese authorities were criticized for not acting quickly enough, allowing the deadly virus to infect 8,000 people worldwide.
Caplan pointed out that telling people to stay inside the boundaries of a massive city is less restrictive than a traditional quarantine that forces people to stay inside their homes all day. Most people who live in Los Angeles, for example, don’t leave the city on a daily basis.
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