Chaos, joy at Wuhan airport as doctors take first flights out

Bloomberg

The crowd outside Wuhan’s Tianhe International Airport on Wednesday pushed forward as anxiety grew over catching their flights out of town — the first to depart since January 23.
Many were people who had come to the central Chinese city for a Lunar New Year vacation in January and found themselves stuck in a protracted, nightmarish stay as the coronavirus outbreak spread and Hubei province was sealed off to curb it. After 11 weeks, the lockdown was lifted and people surged out of the city by train, car and plane.
A Qinghai province resident who gave her surname as Zhang was with her parents and two children at the airport after being stuck in Wuhan since a vacation that started on January 15. “My husband has been alone at home for almost three months,” she said. “I can’t wait to go back.”
The lifting of Wuhan’s lockdown will be a crucial test for China, which is driving a narrative of triumph over the pandemic amid accusations it manipulated virus data and concern the highly contagious illness isn’t fully stamped out.
Among those catching flights out were a group of doctors and nurses from northeastern Jilin province, who had travelled to the embattled city to shore up the local healthcare system, part of the tens of thousands of medical workers from around the country that were sent in to help. At the height of the epidemic, Wuhan’s hospitals were overwhelmed by an influx of coronavirus patients while many doctors and nurses became infected, scenes that were repeated in hospitals across the world from Italy to New York as the pandemic widened.
Others outside were not in such good spirits. Individuals are allowed to leave Wuhan only if they have a “green code” processed via apps run by internet giants Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd based on users’ travel history, basic health information and close contacts.
The green code is a precious thing that grants freedom of movement in China’s post-virus reality, and it can be easily lost. Just visiting a shopping mall where a virus case is later confirmed can turn one’s code yellow, meaning another two weeks of isolation at home.
As airport security guards conferred with those whose green codes were not showing up smoothly, people in the line pushed forward, anxious not to miss their flights. Those that made it through the airport entrance flashed smiles of relief.
He Yuqing, a check-in manager for China Southern Airlines Co said that the airline was operating 28 flights out of Wuhan on Wednesday with some chartered flights carrying medical workers back home. Some of the flights were 90% full, she said.