6,340 Wuhan citizens onboard to South Korea

“About five million citizens have already left Wuan for the Chinese New Year holidays.” Repercussions are spreading across China after the Sunday night press conference where Zhou Xianwang, the mayor of Wuhan, the epicenter of the fatal viral pneumonia, confessed to the fact that only nine million people out of the total 14 million population are currently in Wuhan. This means that an unknown number of potential carriers of the fatal pathogen have spread not only across China but the entire world after the Chinese authorities made the belated decision to shut down Wuhan last Thursday and expand the scope of containment to 17 cities of Hubei Province, with some 50 million people, by Monday. Mayor Zhou came under fire for his botched first-step responses to the “Wuhan pneumonia” caused by an unidentified type of coronavirus. The mayor also said the number of confirmed patients in Wuhan could increase by about 1,000.

According to an analysis on the data from a Chinese flights-booking application, which was conducted by the Chinese Business Network, the top 10 destinations of passengers from Wuhan from December 30, 2019 to January 22 include mega cities such as Beijing (65,853), Shanghai (57,814), and Guangzhou (55,922). The research found that 6,340 Wuhan citizens boarded planes bound for South Korea.


Wan-Jun Yun zeitung@donga.com