Recently, a video of a pool party at the Wuhan Maya Beach Water Park, which featured partygoers in swimsuits shoulder to shoulder, and DJs waving to half-naked crowds who waved back, went viral on the internet.
The scene, which was taken for granted by Chinese people who followed the city’s journey back to normalcy since the 76-day-lockdown was lifted in April, shocked some foreigners. AFP posted the video on Twitter on Saturday and since then “Wuhan” has been trending on Twitter.
VIDEO: 🇨🇳Crowds packed out a water park over the weekend in the central Chinese city of #Wuhan, where the #coronavirus first emerged late last year, keen to party as the city edges back to normal life pic.twitter.com/sIrvzSFdin
— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 18, 2020
One Twitter user said “Wuhan is having a music festival and New York City still hasn’t opened up its gyms,” and another replied bitterly “Move to Wuhan then.”
According to China Press, some also questioned if the video was recent, because it seemed strange to see a city ravaged by the virus for months had recovered so soon
The park said on Tuesday that the video was taken recently, and it took necessary measures to protect visitors’ and employees’ safety, such as temperature tests and disinfection. It also said it had capped the number of entrants to half of the pre-pandemic era, which is around 3,000 people.
Zhang Yong, who owns a small taxi company in Wuhan told Global Times that ever since Wuhan published its city-wide test results, people have been gradually letting their guard down.
In June, Wuhan reported 300 asymptomatic cases out of roughly 10 million local residents who participated in a citywide nucleic acid test program. The city hasn’t reported any new cases since mid-May.
“Now, people don’t think the virus is a big deal. We believe a vaccine will come out soon,” Zhang said.
“Wuhan is making fewer and fewer headlines in China and worldwide, as everything has gone back to normal,” said Zhang, who was amused by the fact that “foreigners were making a fuss about our pool party.”
“I guess it also rings a bell for some countries, which are still struggling to fight COVID-19, that without strict measures, the virus won’t be fended off. We fought hard, this is our payback,” said Zhang.