Xiao Mo is a resident of Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. She works in IT company in Shanghai and was visiting home during the spring festival. She along with her family have remained in the city since it was sealed off on January 23rd, 2020. Since then, the virus has infected more than 24,000 people worldwide, leading to at least 494 deaths.

Wuhan is under lockdown in order to combat infection. Transport is closed down, airports are shut and nobody is allowed to move out of the city. Many stores and companies are also locked down.

There are 11 million people in the city but the streets are empty. In a dispatch from inside Wuhan, Xiao Mo says even buying food and grocery is a big struggle.

Table of Contents

HERE IS HER STORY

Date: Feb 5, 2020

City: Wuhan, China

Body Temperature: 36.7o

Wuhan closed: the 14TH DAY

It has been 14 days after Wuhan’s was official shutdown.

My family is used to preparing lavish traditional food for our New Year feast, including Chinese Ham, smoked sausage, fried meatball and smoked fish.

I’m not a fan of these kinds of food delicacies since it usually contains a lot of salt to make it easily-kept. But this year, these salty traditional foods become ‘tactic supplement’, one of the most important sources of protein.

However, we still need vegetables to ensure basic supplement of vitamin which is important for immunity and to fight viral infections.

Even though some supermarkets and grocery shops are still open, we decided to shop grocery online since the crowd is considered as one of virus exposure origins.

Online grocery used to be an easy daily routine in China.

Now I feel it is more like an online auction. I posted my grocery list and intended delivery fee on the mobile app, waiting for my ‘MR. Delivery’ coming to pick up my request.

WechatIMG91

(Screenshot of China’s popular delivery app called, Mr Delivery)

Higher the delivery fee, higher the probability of being picked up. 40 CNY, 50 CNY, 60 CNY, 70 CNY (official Chinese currency – RMB or CNY).

Finally, my request is being picked up.

The high demand of delivery and lack of delivery resource during Spring Festival resulted in the delay of delivery. It does not matter. It makes people feel safe and less anxious, as long as the delivery service is still running.

After three hours of waiting, deliveryman showed up with a whole box of vegetables, which would be enough for at least a week.

I saw him driving away in his scooter with music playing loudly from his scooter.

At that moment, I felt a little bit relaxed.

Travelling through this huge and quiet city could be lonely and scary, but music is his cure.

And he is our cure.

This diary is our attempt to put people at the heart of this important story.

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