Beijing, Feb 24: The lockdown of Guo Jing's neighbourhood in Wuhan -- the city at the heart of China's new coronavirus epidemic -- came suddenly and without warning.
Unable to go out, the 29-year-old is now sealed inside her compound where she has to depend on online group-buying services to get food.
"Living for at least another month isn't an issue," Guo told news agency, explaining that she had her own stash of pickled vegetables and salted eggs.
But what scares her most is the lack of control -- first, the entire city was sealed off, and then residents were limited to exiting their compound once every three days.
Now even that has been taken away.
Guo is among some 11 million residents in Wuhan, a city in central Hubei province that has been under effective quarantine since January 23 as Chinese authorities race to contain the epidemic.
Since then, its people have faced a number of tightening controls over daily life as the death toll from the virus swelled to over 2,500 in China alone.
But the new rules this month barring residents from leaving their neighbourhoods are the most restrictive yet -- and for some, threaten their livelihoods.
"I still don't know where to buy things once we've finished eating what we have at home," said Pan Hongsheng, who lives with his wife and two children.
Some neighbourhoods have organised group-buying services, where supermarkets deliver orders in bulk.
But in Pan's community, "no one cares".
"The three-year-old doesn't even have any milk powder left," Pan told news agency, adding that he has been unable to send medicine to his in-laws -- both in their eighties -- as they live in a different area.
"I feel like a refugee."
The "closed management of neighbourhoods is bound to bring some inconvenience to the lives of the people", Qian Yuankun, vice secretary of Hubei's Communist Party committee, said at a press briefing last week.
Authorities on Monday allowed healthy non-residents of the city to leave if they never had contact with patients, but restrictions remained on those who live in Wuhan.
Demand for group-buying food delivery services has rocketed with the new restrictions, with supermarkets and neighbourhood committees scrambling to fill orders.
Most group-buying services operate through Chinese messaging app WeChat, which has ad-hoc chat groups for meat, vegetables, milk -- even "hot dry noodles", a famous Wuhan dish.
More sophisticated shops and compounds have their own mini-app inside WeChat, where residents can choose packages priced by weight before orders are sent in bulk to grocery stores.
In Guo's neighbourhood, for instance, a 6.5-kilogramme (14.3-pound) set of five vegetables, including potatoes and baby cabbage, costs 50 yuan ($7.11).
"You have no way to choose what you like to eat," Guo said. "You cannot have personal preferences anymore."
The group-buying model is also more difficult for smaller communities to adopt, as supermarkets have minimum order requirements for delivery.
"To be honest, there's nothing we can do," said Yang Nan, manager of Lao Cun Zhang supermarket, which requires a minimum of 30 orders.
"We only have four cars," she said, explaining that the store did not have the staff to handle smaller orders.
Another supermarket told AFP it capped its daily delivery load to 1,000 orders per day.
"Hiring staff is difficult," said Wang Xiuwen, who works at the store's logistics division, adding that they are wary about hiring too many outsiders for fear of infection.
Closing off communities has split the city into silos, with different neighbourhoods rolling out controls of varying intensity.
In some compounds, residents have easier access to food -- albeit a smaller selection than normal -- and one woman said her family pays delivery drivers to run grocery errands.
Her compound has not been sealed off either, the 24-year-old told AFP under condition of anonymity, though they are limited to one person leaving at a time.
Some districts have implemented their own rules, such as prohibiting supermarkets from selling to individuals, forcing neighbourhoods to buy in bulk or not at all.
"In the neighbourhood where I live, the reality is really terrible," said David Dai, who is based on the outskirts of Wuhan.
Though his apartment complex has organised group-buying, Dai said residents were unhappy with price and quality.
"A lot of tomatoes, a lot of onions -- they were already rotten," he told , estimating over a third of the food had to be thrown away.
His family must "totally depend" on themselves, added the 49-year-old, who has resorted to saving and drying turnip skins to add nutrients to future meals.
The uncertainty of not knowing when the controls will be lifted is also frustrating, said Ma Chen, a man in his 30s who lives alone.
"I have no way of knowing how much (food) I should buy."
Comments
U NEED TO GO THRU STATISTICS... Many girls IN ANOTHER COMMUNITY are threatened and raped before they get to the marriage age from their own family members as well as the saints , most of them are in jails...
Some community girls are used and misused by the men and the girl tolerates b4 the marriage. The drunken men alwz escape with cheddi culture by threatening the young girls and their parents.... Go thru the statistics... It is better to get married and take responsibility of the family if the girl is ready to marry.
Dear Prathima,
You said some communities like under age girls for..,
see my sister, what difference does it make age below 18 to 15. Do they have more power than girls above 18.
does girl become very old if she is above 18. Above 18means usually it can go upto 28.
95% marriage of girls take place between 16-30
May God protect our girls and boys also.
Only the girl can say if she has been raped or not
what about other religion girls starts having sex immediate after puberty? even some try when they enter highschool.
Listen carefully, the above text says :
" Sex with a wife who is under 18yrs of age is rape and therefore a crime. "
It interpretes as child marriage is invalid.
If the marriage is invalid how do they become wife and husband.
So this rule may does not applicable such wife.
This law is not thought through. Judges need the input of psychologists to understand the behaviour of adolescents. There are teenagers today having relationships before 18. Are they going to throw them in jail?
Ridiculous judgement. Marriage is society's way of allowing for the purpose of having children, since the married couple will then have to make the necessary sacrifices to bring up the children. If under 18 is statutory rape then why allow the marriage in the first place? The SC is coming up in many cases with foolish decisions that are against accepted norms and practices. The SC will risk making itself into an impotent body if it does not have a clue on how this is viewed by the people at large.
Underage marriage is still practiced by muslims
Many pedophile worshipers belonging to a piece full community disguising as hindu are venting their anger against this judgement for reasons very well known to all. next we should ban all books / texts /manuals/biographies which eulogizes pedophiles/ pedophilia.
Some community men like young underage girls for . We welcome the order.
Is its applicable only to Hindus or is it also applicable to Muslims? ..I see lot of them getting married at 15year 2 children by 18yrs..
What if the wife does not tell the husband the correct age and inter course is consensual? Later on there is marital discord, can then it be considered as rape?
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