After more than two months lockdown, Wuhan is reopened and life there is going back to normal. It didn’t take long for traffic to begin moving swiftly through the reopened bridges, tunnels and highway toll booths.
Restrictions in the city where most of China’s more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths from COVID-19 were reported have been gradually eased as the number of new cases steadily declined. The government reported no new cases in the city on Wednesday.
The unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and Hubei have been successful enough that other countries adopted similar measures.
During the lockdown, Wuhan residents could leave their homes only to buy food or attend to other tasks deemed absolutely necessary. Some were allowed to leave the city, but only if they had paperwork showing they were not a health risk and a letter attesting to where they were going and why. Even then, authorities could turn them back on a technicality such as missing a stamp, preventing thousands from returning to their jobs outside the city.
Residents of other parts of Hubei were allowed to leave the province starting about three weeks ago, as long as they could provide a clean bill of health. People leaving the city still face numerous hurdles at their final destinations, such as 14-day quarantines and nucleic acid tests.
Wuhan is a major center for heavy industry, particularly autos, and while many major plants have restarted production, the small and midsize businesses that employ the most people are still hurting from both a lack of workers and demand.
The exact source of the virus remains under investigation, though many of the first COVID-19 patients were linked to an outdoor food market in the city.
