tonight Beijing is reimposing
restrictions in many parts of the city
in response to a new cluster of Kovach
cases as other countries emerge from
months of lockdown the new outbreak
there is a reminder of how difficult the
road to recovery could be and questions
are still being asked about China's
early handling of the outbreak the first
case of kovat 19 was in the city of
Wuhan probably at the beginning of
December last year in total there were
nearly 4,000 deaths and over 50,000
infections and our China correspondent
John Sadler has just returned from a
visit to Wuhan he sent this report for
two months time Stood Still in this city
as it endured one of the world's
harshest lockdowns now it seems a
distant memory interrupted lives have
resumed again but beneath the appearance
of normality the authorities are on edge
people we arranged to meet are followed
by plain clothes police who block our
car we're stopped from filming we can't
leave and at this apartment block a
group of officials keeps a careful eye
on us during the lockdown anger erupted
here over how it was managed with a
national Vice Minister heckled on an
official visit it's all fake they shout
baby je the city it was a sign of how
the crisis shook the foundations of a
system one now firmly back in control no
interviews she's told people may say
something they don't mean this official
says explaining his concerned about our
filming
in January Wu Hans Health Service was
the first to experience the onslaught
but despite evidence the disease was
spreading the public was given little
warning doctors were silenced by the
police and one of them Li wen Liang
later died at a small shrine an offering
is made to a dead brother MERS Wong who
doesn't want to use her full name has
been told by the police not to talk to
the foreign media that has chosen to
ignore that warning 44 year old Wong Fei
died in early February in the same
hospital as dr. Lee wen Liang they
should have warned the public in time
his sister tells me if they hadn't
covered it up my brother might be alive
now anyone asking similar questions to
publicly is quickly silenced for China
there is now only one narrative that
matters in Wuhan the undoubted success
in eventually bringing the virus under
control
China is determined that this place will
not be remembered for a cover-up that
put global health at risk but rather as
the cornerstone of a great national
victory one that demonstrates not the
weaknesses of tight political control
but its strengths in Wuhan Snite market
business is still slow but by the
crayfish stalls
there's only patriotism and praise
Chinese people United to control the
epidemic this man tells me but you
foreigners don't know how to protect
yourselves here's another difference
outside one of the hospitals are nurse
we've just interviewed is intercepted by
the police and questioned of course if
it brings you trouble we won't use your
interview she calls us later and asks us
to delete the interview
it is harder to fight a virus in the
face of public criticism and democratic
debate but without them might China
missed the science of the next public
health crisis to that city that pose you
saw on that infantile on tomorrow
night's program most scientists think
the virus came from bats via an animal
in a market then to humans but will also
visit the labs from which the u.s.
claims the virus was leaked
John Saad worth BBC News