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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaPeople & Culture

Wuhan residents start Year of the Rat in scramble to stockpile food, medical supplies amid coronavirus lockdown

  • ‘Government doesn’t know what it’s doing,’ says angry resident whose wife works in a local hospital
  • Hubei governor Wang Xiaodong tries to assure a jittery population that things are under control

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Some people in Wuhan have been stocking up on food and emergency supplies. Photo: AFP
Keegan Elmerin Beijing,William Zhengin Hong KongandMimi Lauin Hong Kong

China ushered in the Lunar Year of the Rat on Saturday, which in the country’s folklore is an animal that symbolises wealth and surplus.

That is far from the mood in the city of Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province. Frustrated and increasingly angry residents will welcome in the new year without the festive traditional feasts, and more with concern about shortages of food and medical supplies on the second day of a citywide lockdown to try and stop the spread of a deadly coronavirus.

The previously unknown virus surfaced almost four weeks ago and has now killed 26 people in China and infected 922 across the country, according to the latest statistics released by China’s authorities.

The number of infections is expected to rise and Wuhan is the epicentre, which prompted Beijing to take the drastic move to effectively ban travel in and out of the city of 11 million people.

Everyone in the neighbourhood is facing the same problem: if someone gets sick, we don’t dare take them to the hospital. We’re afraid they’ll get infected
Chen Xue, a Wuhan resident

The lockdown started at 10am on Thursday with flights, trains and other public transport out of the city ceasing. But that was just the start. Wuhan is now just one of 12 cities and counties under similar lockdowns in the local Hubei province.

On Friday the province declared a “Grade I health emergency”, the highest level of emergency response. Other provinces quickly did the same, including Sichuan and Anhui, followed by Beijing and Shanghai.

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