American teacher trapped at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak reveals ‘Wuhan seems like the Twilight zone’ as people hide at home and stores sell out of masks and fresh produce
John McGory, originally of Columbus, Ohio, has lived and worked in Wuhan, China for years
He was ordered off a subway by a man with a bullhorn when public transit was shut down amid the coronavirus outbreak
John was offered a seat on the chartered flight out but had a passport issue
On his blog John revealed that he and residents of Wuhan live in fear and must wear masks out in the ghostly city where produce is running out
By NATALIE RAHHAL ACTING US HEALTH EDITOR
DAILYMAIL.COM
29 January 2020
John McGory brushed off his brother’s concerns about pneumonia in Wuhan, the Chinese city where John has been an expat for years.
‘Oh there are stories like that all the time in China. I’m not worried,’ John told his brother.
‘It’ll be fine.’
Things didn’t feel fine by January 20, when a man with a bullhorn demanded he and his fellow passengers get off the subway car they were riding as the city shut down public transit.
Now, he’s among the Americans trapped in Wuhan, a locked-down ghost town at the center of the coronavirus outbreak that’s sickened more than 6,000 people around the globe and killed 133 – most of them right there in the southern Chinese city.
John, originally from Columbus, Ohio, has watched in awe as the Chinese city that’s become his home has transformed before his eyes.
Last week, the university where he’s taught English for the last six years traded a festive teachers’ luncheon planned ahead of the Lunar New Year for frozen foods with packaging that protected them from outside germs.
Administrators handed out face masks and hand sanitizer.
The next day, January 23, the entire city was placed on lockdown, blocking anyone from entering or leaving the city where new cases of coronavirus were being reported at an alarming clip.
‘My first thought is, “get some food,”‘ he writes on his blog on American Speech Company.
Grocery stores seem then to be the only places with any business. Malls and streets are otherwise nearly deserted, John writes.
Fresh vegetables have been quickly bought up but things were otherwise well stocked when John went to a Walmart near his apartment.
Face masks, on the other hand, sell out quickly and John was only allowed to enter and exit the university where he works if he’s wearing one.
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