As the number of coronavirus cases in China soars, international governments have chartered flights out of Wuhan for foreign nationals. The UK has urged all its citizens in China to leave. New Scientist spoke with a British man who has chosen to remain in Wuhan, which has been under lockdown since 23 January. He works in logistics for construction companies in China and wishes only to be identified as Charlie out of privacy concerns. Charlie has lived in Wuhan for six years. His partner is Chinese, so might not be able to join him on a flight to the UK if he were to leave. What’s the situation there at the moment? Businesses are still mostly closed throughout the entire city. One of the major problems right now is the lack of transport: cars, metro, buses. It is quite a large city to get around. How are Chinese authorities handling things? From my perspective, the Chinese government is handling the situation extremely well. This could have easily turned into something a lot more nasty in terms of civil unrest. I think most people are quite happy to wait it out so long as they can still get fresh food and feel like they’re not in danger. How often are you going out? I go out pretty much every day. I can do my work from my apartment so that’s not too much of a problem. It’s more just not wanting to stay indoors all day, every day. There aren’t really too many places to go. I usually try to get some exercise, so I’ll take a push bike out, just around empty streets. And then depending on which supermarkets have either fresh stock or not too many people, as reported by friends or the businesses themselves, I’ll go and visit them and see what they’ve got. Within reason, I’m free to move about the city. Are you able to get the food you normally do? Last week was probably the worst. There was nothing fresh in any of the supermarkets. That’s not so bad now, but there’s a definite lack of fresh meat. Vegetables and fruits: that depends on the supermarket. Some of them have quite a good selection. They might raise the prices tenfold, but things like apples and cabbages are usually OK. Have people changed how they shop? When it first started, there was a lot more of a rush to buy things. But now I think people are just sort of used to queuing, especially in supermarkets or pharmacies, to get what they need. But people are buying larger quantities of what they would usually buy so that they don’t have to resupply every day. What about shortages of supplies like facemasks and hand sanitiser? Most Chinese people rely on online delivery services for things like that. Most of the online retailers are completely sold out and they won’t be able to fulfil their orders for another two weeks or so at least. You can purchase them from pharmacies. But you have to queue, and you don’t know if they’ve run out of stock or if they’ve hiked up the price. That’s a little bit of a worry. I already had quite a large personal supply of masks, gloves and sanitiser. I need them for work as well so that’s quite fortunate. How are medical services coping? There is a significant shortage of medical supplies for hospitals. That will be one of the deciding factors for how well the whole thing is contained. If there aren’t enough masks for doctors to wear in hospitals, if there aren’t enough beds in hospitals, then they can’t treat the patients. They’ve resorted to turning things like stadiums into hospitals by filling them with beds. Do you have friends or relatives who have been affected by coronavirus? My partner’s relative caught the virus but I think he’s going to be fine. He’s been sent home because he has mild symptoms and given some medicine and put into quarantine in his house. You plan to stay in Wuhan and wait it out. Do you know of many foreigners who are also choosing to stay? It’s a mixed group – some have already left to their various hometowns. There were flights to the UK, France and the US: I know people who were on all of them. There are also people who have stayed because their partner is Chinese, or they have children, which makes it more difficult depending on which passports they hold. Some people have pets as well; they don’t want to abandon them. Source
