Thousands of domestic university students are returning to Wuhan, China, where the Covid-19 pandemic originated, as campuses have been reopened there with strict social distancing norms in place around seven months after physical classes were suspended.
International students, including hundreds from India, are still not allowed to return to Wuhan, the capital of the central Chinese Hubei province, because of the grim pandemic situation outside China. On-campus classes are expected to begin in a week.
Universities and schools were shut indefinitely in Wuhan after the city was locked down on January 23 to contain the Covid-19 spread. The disease first emerged at a seafood and meat market in this central Chinese city before spreading to the rest of China, and then the world, infecting millions and battering the global economy.
Schools were reopened in a staggered manner as the outbreak slowed in China even as university campuses remained shut mainly because of the infection risks associated with student dormitories.
Returning students will need to carry their updated health cards, showing them as negative for the virus.
As of Monday, over 9,000 students had returned to the Wuhan University from different parts of China, official news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday. Another 20,000 students were expected to return in batches.
Students currently outside the Chinese mainland are still not allowed to return to their universities, Li Qin, deputy minister of the university’s student affairs department, told tabloid Global Times.
Several hundred Indian students are enrolled at medical universities in Hubei. They will be unable to resume on-campus classes until the Chinese government allows international students to return.
For Wuhan, it has been a gradual return to normalcy since the lockdown was lifted in early April. Mass testing of residents followed the lifting of strict curbs on movement
A video recently of a pool party at the Wuhan Maya Beach Water Park, showing half-submerged, tightly-packed partygoers without masks and with DJs blaring music went viral online.
Chinese state media defended the gathering. “Wuhan, once badly hit by the coronavirus epidemic and then locked down for 76 days since late January, now has the epidemic under control, with no new local Covid-19 cases reported for months,” official English news channel CGTN reported.
Mainland China reported 84,981 Covid-19 cases and 4,634 deaths as of Monday. Hubei has reported 68,139 cases, mostly in Wuhan, and 63,626 have been cured and discharged from hospitals. The disease has claimed 4,512 lives in the province, a majority of them in Wuhan.