Two other cities in Hubei province, Ezhou and Chibi, later announced that they would also be locked down, starting at 4pm and midnight respectively.

It came as the number of people confirmed to be infected on the mainland reached 571, with 17 deaths, as of midnight on Wednesday, according to China’s National Health Commission. The southern province of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong, had reported six new infections, taking its confirmed total to 32, according to People’s Daily.

High-speed departures

Wuhan railway station was packed with passengers at 7am on Thursday before stations were closed, but not all of them wanted to escape from the city.

Zhang, a 61-year-old man from Wuhan, was making a business trip to Tianjin and planned to return on Friday. He said he was afraid of the possibility of spreading the virus, and thought the authorities should have taken preventive measures earlier.

“The Wuhan government said they started using temperature screening equipment last week, but when I went through the entrance, I didn’t see any of those,” he said. “No one checked my temperature.” 

On a high-speed train from Wuhan to Dalian, in northeast China, almost all passengers leaving Wuhan were wearing surgical masks.

But many passengers boarding the train two hours later in Xuchang, old and young, were not. One, a man in his 60s, said he had never heard of the coronavirus or any advice to wear a mask.

Other cities had stepped up precautions. In Handan, a city 790km (491 miles) from Wuhan with a population of 9 million, medical personnel were taking passengers’ temperature at the station exit.

Later on Thursday, Wang Wei, a professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, had to abandon his plan to spend Lunar New Year in his hometown of Suizhou, 150km away.

“I can’t leave even if I want to,” Wang said. “I have bought lots of groceries yesterday, enough for several days, to remove the necessity to go out.”

Roadblocks

According to state broadcaster CCTV, 18 motorways into Wuhan were closed at noon on Thursday.

Earlier, medical personnel had been stationed at toll gates and stops on major motorways to perform checks on people leaving the city.

A resident surnamed Ding who was driving out of Wuhan said the outward lanes were jammed, with very few vehicles heading into the city.

“Many want to leave,” he said. “There are medics screening each car, checking the temperature of all passengers. People are allowed to leave, but the traffic is moving slowly because of the screenings.”

On Thursday afternoon, the Ministry of Transport issued an emergency order requiring all provincial transport authorities to close all land and water passenger routes to Wuhan. All commercially operated boats and passenger vehicles on their way to Wuhan were ordered to turn back.

Wuhan’s culture and tourism bureau cancelled all visiting tour groups, and ordered tour agencies to offer refunds. Outbound tours from Wuhan were scrapped on Tuesday, while various travel booking platforms and airlines have offered refunds, cancellations and rescheduling to travellers.

‘We need medical supplies’

A Wuhan resident surnamed Yu was staying at home to avoid exposure to the virus.

“Nobody was ready for the lockdown,” she said. “I went to the supermarket this morning, many people were there and vegetables were all sold out. But the biggest problem for Wuhan is not daily necessity – it is medical treatment.

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“We are severely short of medical resources. Doctors are on duty 24 hours a day, living in hospitals, including my classmate. He keeps saying the protection gear even for frontline doctors is not enough.

“Many medical workers have fallen sick. The official number of 15 infected is definitely not right. I think the government knows the problem but it cannot take action quickly. What we need now is speed.

“When we saw the lockdown notice last night, we all cried.”

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it had arranged for 10,000 protective suits and 50,000 gloves to be sent to Wuhan from the central medical reserves, newspaper Securities Times reported.

Panic buying

Chinese pharmaceutical firms were ramping up production of surgical masks in response to mass panic-buying of medical protective gear nationwide, Hubei Daily reported on Wednesday.

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An employee of Jointown Pharmaceutical Group was quoted as saying that more than 500,000 masks had been released onto the market on Tuesday, with the vast majority shipped to Wuhan, and that Wednesday’s shipment would be double that number. They said the company had sufficient stocks of Tamiflu, the antiviral influenza medication.

Ghost town

A Wuhan resident named Alex Wang said many people had rushed to stock up on food.

“A piece of cabbage now costs 35 yuan (US$5), several times more than before the crisis,” he said. “Stocks of some supermarkets with online delivery services are empty.

“The shopping malls, main roads and restaurants that are usually busiest are now so empty. The roads are also empty, even during peak traffic hours. It’s like a ghost town.”

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Some residents had made early arrangements to leave the city because civil servants had heard about a possible lockdown a couple of days earlier, according to Wang.

“A few of my relatives are civil servants and they knew of the lockdown days ahead of its official announcement, so my cousins left the city on Monday to avoid transport chaos,” he said.

Closed for business

David Wilmots, owner of the Brussels & Atomium Beer Pub in Wuhan, said he and his wife had flown from Wuhan to Vietnam on Wednesday morning on a prearranged trip, going through “high controls” and temperature checks at the airport and when boarding the aircraft. Checks at Guangzhou, where they transferred, were less strict, and none were in place when they reached Vietnam, he said.

“The government told us that nobody is allowed to go to any public place without masks, which I think is very good and necessary,” he said. “People are getting into panic mode.”

Wilmots was in the city during the 2002-03 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), when people were stopped from leaving their housing compounds. “We are not that far yet,” he said.

“I’m scared for my staff, because I’ve been in business for 15 years and we have never, ever closed like this – this is the first time we’ve ever closed for two days.”

Travellers cancel Lunar New Year trips as China’s coronavirus spreads

A 24-year-old Wuhan resident surnamed Huang said the hotel he worked at in the city was no longer accepting customers. “Our hotel is only handling people checking out, no longer checking in,” he said. “It is very serious – you need to wear a mask to go out and people are now saying we should also wear goggles.”

Families separated

The transport disruption forced families to reconsider their plans for Lunar New Year.

Chen Yan, a 35-year-old IT worker who had arrived in Wuhan with his wife and five-year-old son to spend the holiday with his parents, decided to drive home from the city late on Wednesday night, but his parents preferred to stay.

“I felt things were deteriorating quickly,” he said. “But my parents didn’t want to leave despite our efforts to persuade them. My mum wanted to stay at home like every past Chinese New Year, so we had a dinner together on Wednesday. I cried when I hugged my mum before I drove out.”

Cinemas shut

All cinemas in Wuhan were temporarily closed, according to a report by 21st Century Business Herald.

Earlier, it was announced that all seven Chinese films due to be released during Lunar New Year, known as a golden period for China’s box offices, would be delayed because of the risk of spreading the coronavirus. The films included Legend of Deification, Lost in Russia and Leap.

It was also reported that cinemas in Shanghai and Hangzhou, on the coast, were flooded with requests to refund tickets.

On Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee announced it had cancelled an Olympic boxing qualifying event in Wuhan next month because of the outbreak. It had previously relocated women’s football qualifying matches from Wuhan to Nanjing.

English tests due to take place next month under the International English Language Testing System – essential for non-native speakers applying to universities in the United States and Britain – were cancelled.

Mixed messages?

As the heightened preventive measures in Wuhan came into effect on Thursday, residents and travellers posted their observations on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

One user, SUK-CC, a resident of the nearby city of Macheng in Hubei province, wrote that “nearly half the people in this city have come from Wuhan, yet local officials are not publicising this or asking everyone to take health and safety precautions”. She said Macheng was 40 minutes away from Wuhan by high-speed rail.

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“The end destination of my train today is Wuhan, and lots of people who need to change trains at Wuhan don’t think they will be able to find another train out since the city is in lockdown,” wrote one Weibo user. “Everyone wants to go home and be with their families to spend the Lunar New Year together.”

“My train just stopped for five minutes at Wuhan station and a group of people next to me all got on from there,” another wrote. “I’m shaking from nervousness.”