Living like refugees in Wuhan

LOCKDOWN TIGHTENS: PEOPLE ARE NOW CONFINED TO NEIGHBOURHOODS AND COMPOUNDS Only way to get food is through delivery of bulk orders for areas.

Beijing

The lockdown of Guo Jing’s neighbourhood in Wuhan – the city at the heart of China’s new coronavirus epidemic – came suddenly and without warning.

The 29-year-old is now sealed inside her compound where she has to depend on online group-buying services to get food.

But what scares her most is the lack of control. First the entire city was sealed off, and then residents were limited to exiting their compound once every three days. Now even that has been taken away.

Guo is among some 11 million residents in Wuhan, a city in central Hubei province that has been under effective quarantine since 23 January as Chinese authorities race to contain the epidemic.

Since then, its people have faced a number of tightening controls over daily life as the death toll from the virus swelled to over 2 500 in China alone.

But the new rules this month barring residents from leaving their neighbourhoods are the most restrictive yet. Some neighbourhoods have organised group-buying services from supermarkets, but in others residents are running out of food.

In Pan Hongsheng’s community, “no one cares”. “The threeyear-old doesn’t even have any milk powder left,” Pan said, adding that he has been unable to send medicine to his in-laws, who are in their eighties, as they live in a different area. “I feel like a refugee.”

The “closed management of neighbourhoods is bound to bring some inconvenience to the lives of the people”, Qian Yuankun, vice secretary of Hubei’s

You have no way to choose what you like to eat

Communist Party committee, said last week.

Demand for group-buying food delivery services has rocketed. Most group-buying services operate through messaging app WeChat. “You have no way to choose what you like to eat,” Guo said.

The group-buying model is more difficult for smaller communities as supermarkets have minimum order requirements for delivery. Some districts have prohibited food sales to individuals, forcing bulk buying. – AFP

Picture: EPA-EFE SENDING A MESSAGE. An art installation, The Sleeping Bear, wears a face mask to remind people to take precautions to avoid being infected by Covid-19 coronavirus in Chiayi City, western Taiwan, on Thursday.