After 10 weeks confined to their apartments, unable to exercise, shop for groceries or walk their dogs, Wuhan residents are emerging into the daylight.
The subway and intercity trains are running again. Shopping malls and even the Tesla store are reopening. State-owned companies and manufacturing businesses are turning on their lights, with others to follow.




“I’ve been indoors for 70 days. Today is the first time that I came outside,” one woman who ventured into a mall this week told local television. “I feel as if I have been separated from the outside world for ages.”
Wuhan’s airport is due to reopen next week, and residents will be allowed to leave the city for the first time since it was locked down Jan. 23 to control the deadly coronavirus that originated there.
China’s leaders say the country has largely won the battle against its outbreak, reporting each day that domestic transmissions are negligible or nonexistent. The gradual reopening of parts of Hubei province — and now of Wuhan, the provincial capital — is testament to that.
But winning the war is proving to be a tougher proposition. That involves not only preventing a second wave of coronavirus infections but also restarting the economy. It’s becoming increasingly clear that officials cannot achieve both things at once.
“These obviously come into conflict, because to prevent the spread of the virus, both from overseas and from unrecorded cases, China needs to maintain some kind of social distancing measures,” said Neil Thomas, a senior researcher at the China-focused Macro Polo think tank in Chicago. “These are going to dampen demand from consumers and limit the operation of factories, the service industry and the transportation networks.”
Chinese authorities are discovering that allowing people — even those without fevers who are wearing surgical masks and are doused in hand sanitizer — to get too close to each other risks a new rise in infections. Recent media reports have focused on “silent carriers,” and studies have found that as many as one-third of people infected with the coronavirus show delayed or no symptoms.
“The possibility of a new round of infections remains relatively high,” National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said Sunday.
Communist Party organizations must “grasp the prevention and control of the epidemic situation with one hand, and grasp the resumption of work and production with the other,” the official CPC News declared Monday. Party outlets have ranked controlling the virus and stopping a second wave of infections above the need to restart the economy.




A person wearing a full protective gear walks in the streets of Wuhan, China, 30 March 2020.
A person wearing a full protective gear walks in the streets of Wuhan, China, 30 March 2020. (Roman Pilipey/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Like President Trump — who had said he wanted businesses to resume normal operations by Easter, only to backtrack as U.S. deaths surged — Chinese leader Xi Jinping is clearly concerned about the economic impact of a nationwide standstill.
Xi visited the huge Ningbo port and factories in Zhejiang, a hub for exports and a province he once governed, over the weekend to promise that the government would help businesses “recover in the soonest manner.”
Most economists forecast a sharp slump in China’s growth rate in the first quarter, with some predicting the first contraction since 1976. Still, at a Politburo meeting in Beijing on Friday, party leaders signaled further support for the economy, and reiterated their goal of 6 percent growth for the year as a whole.
But efforts to kick-start the economy are not going smoothly.
Despite the gradual reopening of Wuhan, things are still far from normal for the city of 11 million. Officials say that 2,535 people died there during the outbreak, while about 2,500 people remain hospitalized.
People are allowed out of their residential complexes only if they have a return-to-work pass issued by their employer, and only if the government-issued health code on their cellphone glows green — not orange or red — to show that they are healthy and cleared for travel. Residents report that some complexes deemed infection-free have quietly lost that status, without explanation.
In the malls that opened this week, people must stand five feet apart on escalators, and clothes that customers have tried on must be sprayed with disinfectant. Subway passengers must wear masks and sit two seats apart; footage on state media showed near-deserted cars and stations.
“They’re trying to turn the industrial engines back on as quickly as they can,” said Ryan Hass, a China expert at the Brookings Institution. “But it’s a bit of a challenge because 60 percent of the Chinese economy is the service sector. And even if they wanted people to go to movie theaters and restaurants right now, I don’t think there’s a lot of demand.”




Staff members stand outside a Dior store in Wuhan international plaza on March 30, 2020.
Staff members stand outside a Dior store in Wuhan international plaza on March 30, 2020. (AFP/Getty Images)
While Wuhan struggles to return to normalcy, authorities have reinstated restrictions elsewhere.
Small businesses — from karaoke bars in the northern city of Shenyang to Internet cafes in the southwestern metropolis of Chengdu — that tentatively reopened in early March have been ordered to close.
Employees rushed to get back to Moon Village, a karaoke joint in Chengdu, over the weekend and enjoyed a celebratory drink together. The parlor’s social media pages featured photos of disinfecting procedures.
It wasn’t open even a day before local authorities told it to shut its doors.
Some 600 movie theaters that had reopened after a two-month shutdown — out of 70,000 nationwide that were ordered to close at the end of January, before what should have been the biggest box-office week of the year — have been abruptly ordered to go dark.
Indoor attractions such as Madame Tussauds and the landmark Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai, and even pavilions in scenic mountain attractions, have also been told to close.
Chinese authorities have not spelled out reasons for these closures, but analysts such as Thomas say they underline the fear of new infections and the long-term impact that could have on the economy.
This U-turn has been accompanied by other sudden changes, including a ban on foreigners entering China and limited inbound flights for Chinese nationals. The number of flights arriving in the country is less than 2 percent of normal.
“It’s a difficult calculation: public health risk versus economic risk,” said Ryan Manuel, managing director of Official China, a consultancy specializing in China’s domestic political environment.
But it’s a calculation that other countries, including Italy, Spain and the United States, will have to make.
“Everyone will need to come up with an exit strategy,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis, a French investment bank.
For now, she said, Chinese leaders should not worry about getting the economy back to normal. Domestic demand is low, and external demand is even lower, given the coronavirus’s rampage across the world’s largest economies.
“In a world without demand, rushing into production will create excess capacity and push prices down,” Herrero said. “So Chinese leaders could say they’re going slow for sanitary reasons, but really it’s because they can’t sell their stuff to anyone.”




A man wearing a protective face mask walks past a security fence in the streets of Wuhan on March 30, 2020.
A man wearing a protective face mask walks past a security fence in the streets of Wuhan on March 30, 2020. (Roman Pilipey/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to this report.

隨著武漢的重新開放，中國加速引擎以超越冠狀病毒。但是儘管它興趣勃勃，卻只能開道第二檔。
2020年3月30日，安娜·菲菲爾德 
人們在中國武漢的長凳上吃麥當勞。12月首次出現冠狀病毒的武漢市正慢慢恢復生機，未來幾天將完全解除封鎖。（法新社/蓋蒂圖片社）

2020年3月31日，格林尼治標準時間+8下午4:43



武漢居民被禁閉十週，無法鍛煉身體，購物，買東西或walk狗後，武漢的居民白日日漸走出去。


地鐵和城際列車又在運行。大型購物中心，甚至特斯拉商店都在重新開放。國有公司和製造業正在打開燈，其他人也紛紛效仿。



“我已經在室內呆了70天。今天是我第一次來外面，”本週冒險進商場的一位女士告訴當地電視台。“我感覺好像我已經與外界隔離很久了。”


武漢的機場將於下週重新開放，自1月23日鎖定武漢以控制起源於該市的致命冠狀病毒以來，居民將首次被允許離開該城市。



中國領導人說，中國在抵抗疫情的鬥爭中贏得了很大的勝利，每天都在報告國內傳播是微不足道的還是不存在的。湖北省部分地區（現在是省會武漢市）的逐步開放證明了這一點。
廣告



但是，打贏這場戰爭被證明是一個更艱難的主張。這不僅涉及防止第二波冠狀病毒感染，而且還涉及重新啟動經濟。越來越明顯的是，官員們無法同時實現這兩件事。




“這顯然是矛盾的，因為要防止病毒從國外和未記錄的病例中傳播出去，中國需要保持某種社會隔離措施，” 專注於中國的宏觀研究組織（Macro Polo）的高級研究員尼爾·托馬斯（Neil Thomas）說。芝加哥的智囊團。“這些將抑制消費者的需求，並限制工廠，服務業和運輸網絡的運營。”



隨著黑暗現實的到來，總統在重新開放美國方面退縮


中國當局發現，允許人們-甚至那些戴著口罩並被洗手液浸泡的不發燒的人-彼此之間的距離太近，也有可能使感染再次增加。最近的媒體報導將重點放在“沉默攜帶者”上，研究發現，多達三分之一的冠狀病毒感染者表現出延遲症狀或無症狀。


國家衛生委員會發言人米峰週日表示：“新一輪感染的可能性仍然相對較高。”


中共官方新聞周一宣布，共產黨組織必須“一方面抓緊疫情的預防和控制，另一方面抓緊恢復工作和生產” 。黨的機構對控制病毒和阻止第二波感染的排名高於重新啟動經濟的需要。
2020年3月30日，一個身穿防護服的人在中國武漢的街道上行走。（羅馬皮利皮/ EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock）


就像特朗普總統曾經說過，他希望企業在復活節之前恢復正常運轉，只是隨著美國死亡人數的增加而回落一樣，中國領導人習近平顯然擔心全國停頓的經濟影響。


習近平上週末訪問了寧波的巨大港口和浙江工廠，這是一個出口中心和他曾經管理的省份，他承諾政府將幫助企業“盡快復甦”。

大多數經濟學家預測中國第一季度經濟增速將急劇下滑，有些經濟學家預測自1976年以來將出現首次收縮。儘管如此，在周五於北京舉行的政治局會議上，該黨領導人仍表示對經濟的進一步支持，並重申了其6的目標。全年增長百分比。


但是，啟動經濟的努力並不順利。


儘管武漢逐步開放，但對於這個擁有1100萬人口的城市來說，情況仍然很不正常。官員們說，爆發期間有2535人死亡，而仍有約2500人住院。



只有在擁有雇主簽發的工作准證的情況下，並且在手機上政府簽發的健康代碼發綠色光（而不是橙色或紅色）表明人們健康時，才允許人們離開住宅區並允許旅行。居民報告說，一些被認為沒有感染的複合體悄悄地失去了這種地位，沒有任何解釋。


鎖定在北京，我看著中國打退了冠狀病毒


在本週開業的商場中，人們必須站在自動扶梯上相距5英尺遠，並且必須向顧客試穿的衣服噴灑消毒劑。地鐵乘客必須戴上口罩，並分開坐兩個座位；官方媒體上的鏡頭顯示出近乎荒廢的汽車和車站。


布魯金斯學會（Brookings Institution）的中國專家瑞安·哈斯（Ryan Hass）說：“他們正在努力盡快恢復工業發動機的運轉。” “但這有點挑戰，因為中國經濟的60％是服務業。即使他們希望人們現在去電影院和餐館，我也不認為需求很大。”
2020年3月30日，工作人員站在武漢國際廣場的Dior商店外。（法新社/蓋蒂圖片社）


在武漢努力恢復正常狀態的同時，當局在其他地方恢復了限制。


小型企業（從北部城市瀋陽的卡拉OK吧到西南部大都市成都的網吧）已於3月初暫時重新開放。


週末，員工們急忙返回成都卡拉OK場所月亮村，一起喝酒慶祝。客廳的社交媒體頁面上有消毒程序的照片。


甚至在一天前地方政府還沒有關門之前就沒有開門。


在關閉了兩個月後，大約600家電影院重新開放了。在全國應有的最大票房一周之前，全國70,000家電影院已於1月底下令關閉，而這本來應該是一年中最大的票房一周。暗。


杜莎夫人蠟像館和上海地標性的東方明珠塔等室內景點，甚至風景秀麗的山地景點的涼亭也被告知關閉。


中國當局尚未闡明關閉這些設施的原因，但托馬斯（Thomas）等分析師表示，他們強調了對新感染的擔憂以及對經濟的長期影響。

這次掉頭還伴隨著其他突然的變化，包括禁止外國人進入中國和限制中國公民的入境航班。到達該國的航班數量不到正常航班的2％。


``我好害怕''：冠狀病毒分離給世界窮人帶來了新的艱辛


“這是一個困難的計算：公共健康風險與經濟風險”，專門研究中國國內政治環境的諮詢公司“中國官方”常務董事瑞安•曼努埃爾（Ryan Manuel）說。



但這是包括意大利，西班牙和美國在內的其他國家必須做出的計算。


法國投資銀行納蒂西斯（Natixis）首席亞太經濟學家艾麗西亞·加西亞·埃雷羅（Alicia Garcia Herrero）說：“每個人都需要提出退出戰略。”


她說，就目前而言，中國領導人不必擔心經濟恢復正常。考慮到冠狀病毒在全球最大經濟體中的氾濫，國內需求較低，而外部需求甚至更低。


埃雷羅說：“在一個沒有需求的世界裡，衝入生產將產生過剩的產能並壓低價格。” “因此，中國領導人可以說出於衛生方面的考慮，他們走得慢，但這確實是因為他們不能將自己的東西賣給任何人。”
2020年3月30日，一名戴著防護口罩的男子在武漢街頭穿過安全柵欄。（Roman Pilipey / EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock）


北京的劉洋對此報告做出了貢獻。






中國聲稱冠狀病毒在武漢獲勝帶來希望，但專家擔心這還為時過早


隨著冠狀病毒走向全球，中國的習近平宣稱自爆發以來首次訪問武漢取得了勝利


陰謀理論家指責美國冠狀病毒。中國很高興鼓勵他們。


當今世界各地郵政通訊員的報導


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