WUHAN: The Huanan seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which many believe is the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, is sealed behind a blue perimeter fence. A large team of security personnel chase away anyone who lingers. “We are just doing our job,” said a black guard who ordered a Reuters reporter to erase the footage recorded near the main gates of the market. He identified himself as a worker in the city government’s epidemic prevention and control team.
Foreign journalists were invited on an official tour to report on Wuhan’s efforts to rebuild its economy after the months-long trauma of Covid-19. The official message: the “heroic city” has returned to normal and is working again, its schools and tourist sites reopened and its companies operating at full capacity.
“No other place is as safe as this,” said Lin Songtian, president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a state-backed group that helped organize the tour.
The location of more than 80% of Covid-19 deaths in the country, the central Chinese city on the banks of the Yangtze River has reported no cases of local transmission since May, and most of the strict controls imposed during a two-year lockdown. months have passed. relaxed state.
But Wuhan was accused of acting too slowly in the early stages of the outbreak amid fears of disrupting the economy or displeasing China’s leadership in Beijing. Critics say the media censorship and silencing of whistleblowers gave the virus more time to spread undetected.
Wuhan remains reluctant to shed light on the origins of a pathogen that has killed nearly 900,000 people around the world.
The city still restricts access to places like the Huanan market, which was linked to the first cluster of infections identified in December.
At another wholesale market in the far north of the city, which is open to the public, security personnel followed Reuters, dissuading it from speaking to traders and street vendors. “If you don’t allow people to visit these places, it gives people the impression that you have something to hide,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, which studies the politics behind the health problems. from China.
Foreign journalists were invited on an official tour to report on Wuhan’s efforts to rebuild its economy after the months-long trauma of Covid-19. The official message: the “heroic city” has returned to normal and is working again, its schools and tourist sites reopened and its companies operating at full capacity.
“No other place is as safe as this,” said Lin Songtian, president of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a state-backed group that helped organize the tour.
The location of more than 80% of Covid-19 deaths in the country, the central Chinese city on the banks of the Yangtze River has reported no cases of local transmission since May, and most of the strict controls imposed during a two-year lockdown. months have passed. relaxed state.
But Wuhan was accused of acting too slowly in the early stages of the outbreak amid fears of disrupting the economy or displeasing China’s leadership in Beijing. Critics say the media censorship and silencing of whistleblowers gave the virus more time to spread undetected.
Wuhan remains reluctant to shed light on the origins of a pathogen that has killed nearly 900,000 people around the world.
The city still restricts access to places like the Huanan market, which was linked to the first cluster of infections identified in December.
At another wholesale market in the far north of the city, which is open to the public, security personnel followed Reuters, dissuading it from speaking to traders and street vendors. “If you don’t allow people to visit these places, it gives people the impression that you have something to hide,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, which studies the politics behind the health problems. from China.
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