Searching for answers in Wuhan’s coronavirus aftermath: people at epicentre of China’s crisis want explanations

Two reporters from the South China Morning Post, who visited the city just as it began its lockdown, return to assess the mood as it reopens

From the treatment of whistle-blowers to real case numbers, people at epicentre of China’s crisis are looking for answers

Reading Time:6 minutes

People at epicentre of China’s crisis look for explanations. Illustration: Henry Wong

Published: 7:00am, 17 Apr 2020Updated: 11:40pm, 17 Apr 2020

Tian Xi says he still can’t get the sound of the screams out of his head.

It was about noon on February 4 and he had volunteered to help deliver medical masks and other supplies in the central Chinese city of Wuhan as part of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

As he entered one residential compound with a delivery, four men in full protective medical gear carried a black body bag downstairs, followed by two wailing women. Their cries were piecing and hysterical, he said.

The men loaded the body into a van, which had several others already inside.

More than two months later, he says he wants to forget that day but the memory and the shock of the moment stays with him.

“I don’t want this to stay with me for my whole life,” he said. “It’s so frightening.”

That was two weeks into an unprecedented lockdown in Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the pandemic that has infected about 2 million people around the world and claimed 140,000 lives.

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