[ad_1]
The Portuguese rescued last February from Wuhan returned, meanwhile, to the Chinese city where the first cases of covid-19 were diagnosed and now they feel “in the safest place in the world”, after China has contained the epidemic.
Almost a year after the first cases of a mysterious pneumonia were detected, life has returned to normal in Wuhan, while the Communist Party of China appears to have strengthened its legitimacy, initially shaken by the epidemic.
Located in central China, the city, which has been blocked for more than two months, forcing the rescue of thousands of foreigners, including 20 Portuguese, now reaches half a year without new cases.
“We are in the safest place in the world,” says soccer coach Miguel Moreira, one of the 20 Portuguese who flew to Portugal in February, in an operation coordinated by European authorities.
About a month and a half after Moreira was rescued, the European continent became the epicenter of the epidemic, surpassing China in the total number of cases.
In total, Europe now has more than 17 million cases and almost 390,000 deaths, according to data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. China has 86,495 infected and 4,634 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data from the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, the former goalkeeper of the Paços de Ferreira, Varzim and Mafra clubs returned to Wuhan to continue his work at a soccer academy in the city.
The concern in Wuhan, whose nearly 11 million residents have been confined to their homes for more than two months and have been banned from leaving the city, now comes from abroad, as China records mainly imported cases.
“Old women scare their grandchildren when they see me; the security guard at my condo is always willing to check my temperature before letting me in, ”describes Lusa António Rosa, a Design and Art teacher at an international school in Wuhan, who was also rescued, but ended up coming back last May. .
The origins of the pandemic remain by the way
China, where the first cases of the disease were diagnosed in late 2019, has come under fire for handling the early stages of the outbreak. The Chinese government initially refused to share samples of the virus and resisted a transparent and independent investigation. In the first half of January, Wuhan authorities reported only 41 patients and ruled out that the disease was transmissible between humans.
For weeks, the number of patients was unchanged. On January 18, Wuhan authorities also allowed a banquet with 40,000 people, with the aim of setting a world record.
However, already at the end of December, several doctors in the city began to warn about the dangers of an unknown disease. The authorities acted immediately, not to contain the outbreak, but to punish the whistleblowers: the police detained eight doctors to “educate” them about the dangers associated with spreading rumors.
Various pieces of evidence suggest that the virus almost certainly originated in an animal, before evolving and infecting humans. The Chinese authorities banned the trade and consumption of wild animal food after the outbreak began. However, as the disease spread around the world, Chinese authorities and the state press began to suggest that the disease did not originate in the country.
A thematic exhibition on Wuhan’s fight against the outbreak at the China Cultural Exhibition Center, a 1.8 million-square-meter pavilion in the north of the city, extols the role of the Chinese Communist Party, particularly leader Xi. . Jinping, in the fight against the epidemic, but does not refer to the origin of the covid-19.
Rather, the exhibition praises China’s support for foreign countries, including the dispatch of medical teams and healthcare workers, and the generosity of Chinese leaders in sharing the “Chinese solution” with “foreign countries and organizations.”
Zhao Xiaosong, a 24-year-old Chinese student attending the exhibition, seems convinced: “In two months we were able to overcome the disease. A unique achievement in the whole world ”, he explains. “The Communist Party played a crucial role,” he says.
