Alongside the constant fear of the city of Wuhan following the Corona virus, every evening the streets are filled with thousands of voices of determined residents who choose, despite the official censorship, to share the world with what is happening • "My body heat has increased, but I was told to rest at home," a young woman eating in the local market said

• Medical Corps personnel near a hospital in Wuhan

  Photo:

  IP

• Doctors struggle for a patient's life in Wuhan city // Photo: Reuters

• Vaughan resident wearing poor protective // ​​Photo: IP

The streets of Wuhan city, home to nearly 12 million residents, empty and cold. When access to the city is blocked and the international airport, bus and metro system are disabled and almost all cultural events are canceled, most residents prefer to stay in their homes as much as possible, reducing the possible exposure to the Corona virus that erupted in the city less than a month ago.

But despite the closure, fear and thousands being hospitalized, Vaughan's streets are filled every evening with thousands of voices of determined residents. "Vaughan, add oil!", A call that means "keep fighting," or "move on" - which has become the residents' battle cry, shouting it into the cold night out of the city's many residential towers.

The chorus of residents shouting slogans encouraging each other slightly comforted the occupants of the besieged city, which is the largest closure in its scope in the history of modern China. While store shelves are draining merchandise, hospitals are collapsing under hospital load and a severe shortage of protective masks and treatment kits - confusion and fear gradually become rage against authorities, who have acted slowly in identifying the disease and even after being identified, have not acted as necessary to prevent its outbreak.

Zhang Opa, a journalist at a major government media outlet in Wuhan City, was the first to express the anger of many city residents when he wrote in an unprecedented critical post that "we must replace local leadership immediately. Under the unusual, dangerous circumstances that continue to get worse every day, it becomes clear Because Wuhan's leadership doesn't have what it takes to lead. "

"The administration in Wuhan missed the opportunity to curb the spread of the virus." Girl swinging by the river // Photo: IP

The post was deleted a few hours after it was published, and the paper in which the baker works even issued a formal apology statement on the matter, but the damage was done. Millions have already seen it and baker himself, who is not deterred by the newspaper's disregard for his remarks, continues to criticize local government on the various social networks. This is an unusual venture in China, where political criticism, including the local government, is rare and well-disguised, and its emergence indicates the magnitude of the crisis.

The Beijing government was quick to show that it was responding to criticism. In a particularly aggressive interview on the state television network, Wuhan Mayor Xiao Xianwang had to admit that "we did not pass on information at the right time and did not use the information we had to improve our work." Xianwang offered to resign during the interview, but it is hard to believe that Chinese government leaders will allow him to resign while the crisis is gripping the city.

Hell on earth

But away from the political crisis caused by the outbreak, the residents of Wuhan themselves, due to their isolation and rigid censorship, find it difficult to pass on their experiences of panic, sickness and detachment. While official Chinese media shows medical professionals arriving in the city, and dozens of bulldozers are busy building a new hospital for the many adherents, photos and videos distributed anonymously on social networks reveal a much sadder picture of patients collapsing in the street, empty shops, and doctors sleeping in contaminated reception rooms To zero.

Alongside the harsh pictures, there are also, by and large, real stories of the townspeople who choose, despite the official censorship, to share the whole world with what is going on around the city. An anonymous blogger, who managed to upload a video to the social network YouTube, which is blocked in the state, narrates what's going on in the city.

"Medical services are completely paralyzed, or more precisely, are in complete chaos," says a masked young man. "The hospitals are full, no one is registering the patients who are coming, just putting them in a long queue. You can wait for hours in line and still not get basic care or examination, and if you have been in line for hours, even if you arrive healthy, you will contract the virus," he says. The anonymous young man.

"Transport in Wuhan is completely paralyzed. Public transport systems have stopped completely. All of them," he said on the international platform, speaking Mandarin. "Many gas stations just shut down. Ambulances stand still while people are in dire straits."

Empty streets in Wuhan // Photo: Reuters

The young blogger's descriptions sound less like a medical crisis and more like an apocalyptic vision. "Just leave us to die. The best solution is to shut up at home and hope you survive. Vaughan has become hell, is it our New Year's celebration, does it feel festive to you?" The young man wonders.

"Now we all know what really stands behind this country. But we have no power, no means, only flesh and blood in the face of gunmen and tanks. The young people in this country are not brainwashed, I hope Chinese from around the world see this and put pressure on the government, ”the anonymous youngster reads.

"Drinking hurts me too"

While the anonymous young man places his rage in the government and spares no criticism of her oppressive behavior, a limited number of the sick victims have also been able to pass on their story. Xia Kingking, a young resident of Wuhan, told of the disease's infection in a rare interview with the British Guardian.

She ate with her parents a serving of omelette and rice at the town's fish market, a popular spot for quick and cheap meals and also the focus of the outbreak of the virus. Kingking didn't know it, but as she sat with her parents in the small restaurant, hundreds of people were already infected in the market around her.

"Three days later, as the authorities closed the fish market, my body heat began to rise," she says. The next day, when the Chinese young woman went to the hospital, no one asked her if she had visited the fish market or mentioned the new disease, even though hundreds of cases had already been discovered in the city, "They just told me to go home and rest."

Empty shelves at Wuhan city supermarket // Photo: Reuters

But the rest was of no use, the wall of the Chinese young woman rose steadily and, alongside a troublesome cough, she began to experience difficulty breathing. "Even eating and drinking has become an unbearable pain," she tells the British newspaper. As Kingking's disease developed, more and more revelations were added about the new outbreak. "My parents treated me with dedication, but tried to keep a great distance and protective masks," she recalls.

Kingking had managed to overcome the severe symptoms of the disease in the meantime, but remained weak and with a stubborn fee cough. Unlike other young people, who are looking to criticize the administration, she admits that there was a default, but that this is not the time to criticize.
"There is no doubt that the government in Wuhan missed the opportunity to curb the spread of the virus. They failed to inform the public and did not prepare hospitals to deal with the new situation, but now the main thing should be how we all, together, overcome this obstacle," she stresses.

"The Lonely Man in the World"

While Wuhan residents are facing the consequences of closure and fear of contagion, in many rural communities in China, especially around the capital Beijing, and near Hubei province where the outbreak began, local residents have declared self-closure and are blocking access to the villages. Foreigners are deported almost automatically.

Patient Assistance in Hubei Province // Photo: IP

Villages know that their access to medical services is limited, and they are convinced of their ability to survive on their own.

"We are raising our leek, we have frozen pork in fine quantity and oil and rice reservoirs. We have no reason to go out of the village," Proud resident Lou Wyan, a resident of Hubei County, told Reuters in a telephone call.

Pictures sent from the village show red ribbons marking the entrances, and residents wearing orange glowing vests and masks on their faces are on the lookout. "Every home is an area of ​​closure on its own," claims Wian.

In other districts near Beijing, local authorities are offering hundreds of dollars for information from informers about unregistered foreigners who have arrived in the area.
"It is our job to find anyone who comes from outside and enforce public order. Life is more important than anything. People cannot be threatened with information to the authorities," says Reuters Chen Deng, a retired citizen and local community leader who took it upon himself to ensure the health of his villagers. .

Chen walks around the village, door to door, along with other volunteers, checking that there are no new visitors or unregistered residents.
Those affected by the ruthless policy are actually local residents who have moved from the village boundaries to the virus-infected areas and returned before the outbreak of the epidemic.

"I think I'm the loneliest man in the entire world," says Carmen Wong, a student who left Levahan and was able to return to his village before the outbreak of the plague. Wong was placed in solitary confinement and received only a few visits. "People are scared to eat with me. If I sneeze, straight up blames me for spreading the virus. I have been tested again and again, but it doesn't interest anyone," he protests.

Those on the front line of the fight against the virus outbreak are doctors and medical staff. Of more than a hundred dead in the epidemic, there is also Lian Woodung, a 62-year-old doctor who contracted the virus during the treatment of patients in the early days of the outbreak. Another doctor died of a heart attack after treating patients for more than 24 hours without sleep.

A letter of complaint sent by a doctor from Wuhan City to the National Health Commission somewhat reveals the conditions faced by the doctors who are in the eye of the storm.

"We were not allowed to pass on the information about the new virus, even as the condition worsened. We sent people home at risk. Because of the whitewash of the local government, we put people's lives in danger," he told the commission.

"I came across countless medical personnel who were unaware of the nature of the disease, the way it spreads and the fact that it was contagious, they were just cut short and fell into the line of fire," the anonymous doctor protests.

A nurse at a hospital in Wuhan told the Associated Press: "When we found out that the disease was passed from person to person - department heads, hospital administrators and other staff members made countless calls to the local government and the health committee," she says in frustration.
"The message has always been the same. They said we couldn't wear protective gear or insulation suits because it would panic and make people stay away from hospitals," she says in frustration. The nurse herself was infected with the virus and kept in solitary confinement for several days. "Even now, some doctors do not have as much isolated equipment as they need, and they use garbage bags and cut plastic bottles."

Those who can shed light and tell his name about the serious condition are foreign doctors who are in town. In an interview with the Associated Press, Tanzanian doctor Khamis Hasan Bakri tells of the panic that gripped him when he realized that the virus was spreading from person to person. "I was even afraid to touch the vegetables in the supermarket. Everyone is afraid, afraid to meet people, to take care of them," he admits.

Bakri makes sure to update about 4,000 African students in Wuhan City, and thanks to the use of the Swahili language, he is free to tell them what is really going on. "None of us expected it, we have no idea when the closure will last. For me as a doctor, I have something to contribute and how to calm myself, but our students are in a panic," he says.

Mass escape

Amidst the madness and anxiety of besieged Wuhan, thousands of foreign nationals are trying to find their way out of the city. Foreign governments have begun evacuating hundreds of people, especially the elderly, on special flights from the city's closed airport.
The strangers themselves form a skylight for the city.

"This is the first time I have dared to leave the house since the closure began," says a French citizen living in Wuhan to the AFP. "I broke down, I just have to buy food. I have no choice. I've seen people getting sick around me, that's why I don't leave home."

Whoever refuses to surrender and close is the Marco Polo Hotel, one of the largest hotels in Wuhan and one of the most prestigious. The staff does daily fitness exercises for staff and guests to improve the immune system and even though the restaurant is closed, hotel guests can order food through room service.

"The maid just put the food on the floor and escaped," a guest from one of the Latin American countries tells the Associated Press. "We need to fill out forms on our every exit outside the hotel grounds and pledge that we will not visit markets or restaurants," he said.

But while the foreigners are gradually evacuating, undergoing extensive medical examinations, the ordinary residents of Wuhan remain to cope with the disease, which continues to spread. As infectious numbers continue to rise and even exceed those of the SARS eruption in 2002, residents' cheers for one another appear to be the main comfort source for residents of the battered city in the near future.