An Argentinian tells how people live in Wuhan, a year after the outbreak of the coronavirus – telam

Javier Prez has resided with his wife Joy Chen, their 5-year-old daughter and their 18-month-old son in Wuhan for four years and in China since 2006.

Javier Pérez, a 45-year-old Argentinian residing in Wuhan, the city in China where the first cases of the coronavirus appeared a year ago, said that at present “the pace of life is the same as before the pandemic “although” there are habits which do not disappear “such as the use of chinstrap, alcohol gel in public spaces or temperature control in access to jobs, businesses and schools.

“We are doing very well, nothing compared to what it was at the beginning and nothing compared to what is happening in the rest of the world now”, he declared in dialogue with Télam Pérez, who lives with his wife Joy Chen, their 5-year-old daughter and 18-month-old son in Wuhan four years ago and in China since 2006.

With 11 million people, Wuhan is the sprawling capital of central China’s Hubei province, where the Sars-CoV-2 virus outbreak began at the end of December last year. .

“Currently there is no community transmission, the cases that appear are people who have traveled but as there is still a mandatory quarantine for anyone returning to the city, the situation is under control.”“

“Currently there is no community transmission, the cases that appear are people who have traveled but as there is still a mandatory quarantine for anyone returning to the city, the situation is under control,” Javier explained. .

“There have also been cases related to people working in transport and logistics, especially food, but they immediately trace close contacts and they are all isolated and within a week they already contain it,” at -he adds.

The Argentinian, who works at a major auto factory based in Germany, described: “In public spaces across almost all of China today, chin straps are still in use and in Wuhan in particular we continue to wear a mask all over. the time that we are not with our family groups. The factory, for example, I have an office alone, when someone enters I immediately put on my mask ”.

Although social gatherings are allowed, Javier said that “we are still trying to prevent a lot of people from getting together” but said that “the rest of things work as before with protocols; for example my daughter goes to school by bus and they measure the temperature before getting on the bus and before entering school. “

“For months, we didn’t use the air conditioning but we opened the windows in closed spaces; now as there are hardly any cases in the city, that has changed, but I believe that if new infections appear, the practice will resume, ”he explained.

With 11 million inhabitants, Wuhan is the sprawling capital of Hubei province in central China.

Alcohol gel is always available to enter every space, both in offices, supermarkets and schools, and another measure that is maintained is that when you enter stores, in many cases you must scan the QR code that each person has on their cell phone. .

“This system was put in place during the first days of the quarantine; each person is assigned a personal QR code that allows the government to follow up in case of contact tracing,” he explained.

The greeting has not changed, simply because the kiss on the cheek was not part of the ritual in China before the pandemic.

On December 31, China reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) that 27 people had a type of pneumonia of unknown origin, mostly workers in the Wuhan seafood market; and ten days later it was reported to be a novel coronavirus. On January 11, it was reported that there had been a first death from this cause.

Since the start of the pandemic, the city has reported more than 50,340 cases and 3,869 deaths, but most of those numbers correspond to the first few months of the year.

On January 23, the local government cut off access to the city, which caused several inconveniences as many people had mobilized for the Chinese New Year.

Alcohol gel is always available for entry into every space, both offices and supermarkets and schools.

“A few days later, he determined that it was possible to go out alone to buy essentials (food, medicine), then that the car could not be used and finally that one could not leave the house. for whatever reason, ”Perez recalled.

The two-month quarantine was “really strict, no one left their home” and the opening began around March 22, he said.

A few days earlier, in mid-March, the daily new cases reported across China averaged 30 and since then have only rarely exceeded double digits. For example, in April and late July, when outbreaks were quickly brought under control.

“Each person receives a personal QR code that allows the government to follow up on contact tracing.”“

For Javier, the success of containing the virus in China rested on two aspects. “On the one hand, the culture is very different, here if the government says to stay at home, people understand that it is necessary and they do it, there was a lot of unity in the way of deal with the problem. “

“On the other hand, when they detected a case, that person was forced to go to an isolation center for fourteen days and a very exhaustive contact tracing was carried out. The isolation centers were beds in football stadiums nobody liked to be there, but people banked it and thanks to that they managed to get out of the situation we were in, ”he said.

Finally, the Argentine also mentioned the massive test that was carried out in Wuhan at the end of May with nearly 10 million samples, which allowed the detection of nearly 300 asymptomatic people, according to official data.