Life In Virus Ground Zero

A South African teacher living in China tells of deserted streets, food shortages and a city in lockdown as the death toll rises

- Pieter Van Zyl

It was the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to spread her wings and fly. So when newly graduated teacher Jessika Bailing left her East London home in South Africa on a flight to China she couldn’t have been more excited.

Jessika (23) chose to make her new home in Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province, for its lively atmosphere and wide variety of restaurants.

But fast-forward one year and her apartment in the city feels more like a jail cell than a springboard to adventure.

She hasn’t seen her class of three- to six-year-olds in a while as all schools are closed until at least the end of the month.

And in the past two weeks, she’s left her apartment only twice, excluding this morning when she went out to take pictures of the deserted city for YOU.

“Wuhan looks like a ghost town,” she tells us.

Jessika finds herself at ground zero of the coronavirus (2019-nCoV), the killer disease that’s claimed hundreds of lives and spread panic around the world. In China there are more than 17 000 confirmed cases of the virus, the BBC reports, with 361 people having died on the mainland alone at the time of going to print. The virus has also spread to 24 countries and one man has died in the Philippines.

It’s believed the virus originated in December in a food market in Wuhan, a sprawling city that’s home to about 11 million people.

Chinese authorities have blamed the outbreak on the illegal trade in wildlife.

Early research indicates the virus was transferred from snakes to humans, and rats and bats are also possible carriers.

There were fears that pets could transfer the virus to their owners, but the World Health Organisation has dismissed this as a myth.

Still, Jessika isn’t taking any chances.