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"Work is there, but I can't go there"
There have been no new infections in Wuhan for two days. In Hubei Province, 60 million people remain in quarantine. How do you deal with that?
By Axel Dorloff, ARD Studio Beijing
After nearly two months of quarantine, Peng Li is still waiting for a permit to return home. On January 23, the 40-year-old went to his old home for the spring festival. His parents live in Hubei Province. On the same day, the metropolis of Wuhan was cordoned off because of the outbreak of the corona virus - and then the entire province with 60 million people.
The authorities only relaxed the measures somewhat earlier this week. Peng reports: "On March 16, workers from the neighborhood came to pull the nails out of the barrier materials from the walls. Now children are allowed to play outside again. We are allowed to shop, but not to leave our neighborhood. We must continue to wear face masks don't gather us in groups. " His apartment in Wangyizhen Township, 160 kilometers from Wuhan, was boarded up for weeks because of neighborhood violations of the curfew.
Peng's parents moved to relatives in a mountain village right after the Spring Festival. He hopes it's safer for them there. His wife and one-year-old son had stayed in the province of Canton for the spring festival. Peng is upset that he can't go back to them. He had actually only planned a six-day visit to his parents: "Now I'm constantly buying new train tickets; I've already canceled a total of 16 tickets for the return trip."
In the past eight weeks, Peng has worked out a routine: eating twice a day, one Chinese cabbage a day, regular Tai Chi exercises, and reading. But the fear of the future gnaws at him: "I haven't had a salary for two months. My work is still there, but I can't go there." Because he works for a company that repairs medical devices, his work is actually considered systemically important. He had not yet received an answer to his question about compensation. Economic uncertainty affects many: workers could not go to their factories, farmers could not go to their fields. Shops and restaurants are only slowly opening again. Financial reserves have been used up, even at Peng.
Queuing for shopping in Wuhan
Hubei Province records over 80 percent of China's infections and more than 95 percent of deaths. People from Hubei are currently struggling with stigma in China.
Some family members and friends that Peng is on the phone with are desperate. Some have psychological problems because of the long quarantine, he says. "Or they hate the government because it didn't act carefully enough. If people remain locked up, some could rise up despite the one-party system." Peng now hopes to be able to go to his family in the province of Canton this weekend. Then he has to be quarantined again for two weeks.
Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province and China's epicenter of the corona crisis, has reported no new infections for the second day in a row, officials said. But it is still far from normal.
