Foreigners in Wuhan praise fight to tackle COVID-19

WUHAN－While many people around the world still live on tenterhooks, wondering when COVID-19 will finally be brought under control, Adham Sayed, a Lebanese student studying in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, is over the moon about the publication of his book, Confidence Comes from Effectiveness: A Foreigner's Wuhan Diary.

Having lived in Wuhan for five years, Sayed witnessed how Wuhan, after being hit hard by the pandemic, emerged victorious in its fight against the pandemic after making great sacrifices.

In his book, Sayed related how China had managed to control the spread of the pandemic and how people protected themselves from getting infected.

"It is epic that all people in Wuhan played their roles in the war against the virus. And I want to document what really happened here from my perspective," says Sayed. "Spring has arrived in Wuhan."

As of Tuesday, there were over 85 million confirmed cases and more than 1.85 million deaths from the virus all around the world. While a large part of the world is still in the throes of the pandemic, China's success in basically containing the coronavirus domestically has drawn quite a lot of attention.

Touching upon the strict measures China has taken in curbing the spread of the virus, Benjamin Wilson, a US citizen who has been living in Wuhan for almost two decades, says it was a sacrifice that has paid off as people's lives in the city are returning to normal.

"I would be very afraid if I were living in the (United)States," Wilson says in an interview with US NBC News, adding that Wuhan now is "one of the safest places in the world".

According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University, the US has reported over 20.9 million cases and more than 354,000 related deaths, leading the world in terms of both the caseload and the death toll.

Christopher Suzanne, also a US citizen, has lived in Wuhan since 2009 and returned to the city with his family in March.

He tells NBC News that he "unequivocally" made the right choice to return to Wuhan during the pandemic, as several of his family members in the US had been infected.

"Just the feeling of being in Wuhan, it's like it's such a success story in the middle of a horror story," he says.

Worrying about the worsening situation in the US, Suzanne says the Americans seemed "so divided", which has been hindering the country from taking effective measures to tackle the crisis.

Xinhua