Calgary man who spent month in Wuhan lockdown warns it’s too soon to ease Alberta COVID-19 restrictions

Reminiscences of his time in lockdown in Wuhan are nonetheless vivid for Bin Zhang.

The Calgary man, his spouse and younger youngsters had been visiting his mother and father in China final January when the novel coronavirus struck.

“It was spreading, and we didn’t know the extent of how a lot so we had been nervous about catching the virus,” Zhang stated on Sunday.

“On the time, our greatest concern was that we weren’t in a position to come dwelling to Canada.”

Zhang, his spouse and their youngsters had been caught indoors in Wuhan for 27 days earlier than getting on a flight organized by the Canadian authorities.

“We definitely take it extra critically, even residing in Calgary the place the restrictions should not as extreme as again in January in Wuhan. Simply due to what we went by way of, we definitely respect it extra, and we deal with it extra cautiously,” Zhang stated.

His mother and father had been cooped up for practically 100 days, regardless of the official lockdown within the metropolis of 11 million individuals lasting 76 days.

“[My parents] are doing nice. Not lots of people know this however individuals in Wuhan have been having fun with pre-COVID life-style since April,” Zhang stated.

The extreme lockdown resulted in trauma and financial hardship for a lot of in Wuhan, however the data of his mother and father’ lives being again to regular in Wuhan is partly what drives Zhang’s assist of latest strict Canadian journey guidelines.

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He thinks we’d be higher off now had the federal journey measures been taken earlier and the federal government of Alberta cracked down tougher.

“If we might have taken a lot of these measures a number of months earlier, I believe we’d be in a a lot better place and people companies could be a lot better off now,” Zhang stated.

He admits it’s a robust matter and he feels sympathy for enterprise homeowners. In reality, Zhang remains to be a part-owner of a restaurant in Wuhan.

“However to ease these restrictions [in Alberta] now, I believe we’re simply taking our foot off the fuel slightly too quickly. We’re simply seeing numbers come down and that’s an amazing development however I’m simply afraid that we’re doing it too quickly,” Zhang stated.

Zhang moved to Canada from China 16 years in the past partly as a result of he believes in particular person freedoms. However having skilled how two completely different societies dealt with the pandemic makes him suppose Canada might use extra of a bunch mentality.

“You’ll want to have that workforce spirit to mainly deal with it. That’s when individuals put apart their particular person wants for the higher good of the general public, and I simply really feel that we is perhaps slightly low in that sort of spirit right here,” Zhang stated.

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