Shopkeepers in the city at the centre of the virus outbreak in China were reopening Monday but customers were scarce after authorities lifted more of the anti-virus controls that kept tens of millions of people at home for two months.
“I’m so excited, I want to cry,” said a woman on the Chuhe Hanjie pedestrian mall who would give only the English name Kat. She said she was a teacher in the eastern city of Nanjing visiting her family in Wuhan when the government locked down the city in late January to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Some 70 per cent to 80 per cent of shops were open Monday but many imposed limits on how many people could enter. Shopkeepers set up dispensers for hand sanitizer and checked customers for signs of fever.
Wuhan’s bus and subway service has resumed, easing curbs that cut most access to the city of 11 million people on Jan. 23 as China fought the coronavirus.
The train station reopened Saturday, bringing thousands of people to what is the manufacturing and transportation hub of central China.
Travel controls on most of Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, were lifted on March 23.
