Wuhan is probably one of the last places on earth where you would expect to see a massive techno pool party taking place. Just a few days ago thousands of people gathered at the Wuhan Maya Beach Water Park for a wild music festival, with no face masks or social distancing. Another unprecedented Chinese show of disrespect towards the rest of the world.

By Arthur Blok
Negative responses from all over the globe are pouring in especially from nations where people are being kept in social and economic lockdowns and daily lives are destroyed. Looking at the party scenes, it is hard to accept that this is the Chinese city where COVID-19 is believed to have originated, after first being detected there in December 2019.

Chinese state media has defended Wuhan residents after photos and video of a huge pool party went viral this week, saying complaints by foreigners were “sour grapes”. Chinese authorities have been under attack for months now over early attempts to cover up the coronavirus outbreak, with some world leaders and many opinion leaders saying they could have stopped its spread to other countries.

The city that hosts 11 million residents was the place to record an outbreak of Covid-19, and instituted a hard lockdown of residents which shocked observers. Wuhan eventually came out of lockdown in April, after 76 days, but saw a new outbreak just a month later.

But mid-May, six new virus cases were recorded. The city quickly put in place ambitious plans to test its entire population of 11 million people. The outbreak was soon brought under control after the launch of a mass testing program for all residents. At least that is what the Chinese authorities claim.

Only a few weeks later in early June, night markets - which street stalls set up along small streets - were allowed to re-open. In July, life truly started to go back to normal in most parts of China. Cinemas in most places were allowed to re-open, certain parks, libraries, museums were also allowed to open at half capacity and larger gatherings were given permission to take place. And now techno pool parties can be added to that list.

According to Johns Hopkins University Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, there were more than 68,000 infections in China’s 89,500 reported cases, and 4,512 of its 4,706 reported deaths. That is all history with last weekend’s event. It appears life has edged back to normal in what used to be the Chinese Covid-19 crisis centre.

Global outrage on social media, angry and surprised reactions all over the world that such a large scale event was allowed to take place in Wuhan. Authorities claim there has not been local coronavirus case since mid-May, and everything is under control.

It seems like all the heavy lockdown and social distancing measures implemented all over the world only had the wished effect in Wuhan. First infecting the world and creating global panic with a novel Corona virus, and then gives us all the finger.

Party on Wuhan, and please do not worry about the rest of the world that you infected.

We'll be fine.