THE WUHAN LOCKDOWN

A thorough account of the events leading to the Covid-19 lockdown in Wuhan, China, in early 2020, drawing from dozens of personal accounts (“lockdown diaries”).

The outbreak of SARS (another coronavirus) in 2003 had prepared the Chinese health community for the detection of mysterious cases of pneumonia in late December 2019 and early January 2020. However, when hospitals and physicians such as Li Wenliang sounded the alarm, they were censured for spreading “unverified information.” Wenliang later died of the virus, becoming a kind of martyr. From Jan. 4 to Jan. 20, life for the city of 11 million went on as usual, with huge festivities for the Lunar New Year as well as several political congresses, despite the alarming news about the pneumonia cases. “The 20-day delay in informing the public was irresponsible state behavior, to say the least,” writes Yang, a professor of sociology and digital culture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the deputy director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China. Despite authoritative strictures put in place over the past decade, and with the ascendancy of Xi Jinping and his emphasis on “civility” and “positive energy,” internet culture and netizen protests had strengthened, giving power to regular citizens. By the time of the lockdown on Jan. 23, when emergency mobilization measures were implemented, people began to take the matter into their own hands, reverting to behaviors not seen since the Cultural Revolution—e.g., the use of loudspeakers (“blunt force regulation” in order to “reduce bureaucratic discretion”) warning people to stay indoors, chanting slogans, neighborhood watchdog associations, and other instances of belligerence, resilience, and endurance among the Wuhan population. The tone may be too scholarly for some readers, but that does little to diminish the power of the diaries, which clearly demonstrate this emotionally trying period of lockdown.

Extraordinary measures during extraordinary times, documented meticulously if somewhat academically.