WUHAN: The Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, has lifted the lockdown as the number of new cases has declined sharply. The latest government figures reported Tuesday listed no new cases.
However, the decision of opening the city for mobility was taken after it was made mandatory for the citizens to use a smartphone application that will utilise data tracking and government surveillance to confirm that the user is healthy and has not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus.
The city celebrated the occasion with a light show around the Yangtze River. Bridges and other city infra radiated images of health workers, paying homage to those essential service people who contributed in saving the “heroic city”, a title that was given to Wuhan by Xi Jinping.
The city now faces a challenge of resuming business as usual after 76 days of inactivity. While there are questions about the veracity of China’s count, the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and its surrounding province of Hubei have been successful enough that countries around the world adopted similar measures.