China: Over 20,000 people waiting in line for a park to reopen after months of mandatory quarantine
While the rest of the world is closing down all non-essential businesses and enforcing mandatory quarantine due to the Coronavirus, China is starting to reopen some of its public services. Finally, after months of fighting the virus, China's number of new cases and deaths are falling to a bare minimum. For China, these numbers are a sign that it's time to bring a little normalcy back to its isolated population.
With over 20,000 people scrunched together in line, waiting for the reopening of China's Huangshan Mountain National Park, one might question if reopening an attraction of that size/popularity is a good idea at the moment.
via CNN
It was roughly a month and a half ago (January 25, 2020) when China started experiencing a high number of cases of Covid-19. At first, the park closed its doors completely, but then decided to allow entrance to a select number of visitors, hoping that safety measures like social distancing would be enough to prevent the virus from spreading. Now that it seems the pandemic has ended in China, the park decided to once again reopen its doors to everyone. Although they expected a high turnout, they probably didn't think 20,000 people would show up on the first day.
The images provided in the article clearly show thousands and thousands of people gathered in line. Although most people are practicing certain safety measures, like wearing a mask, keeping their distance between each other was completely impossible. The park was so packed that many visitors were told to come back another day because the park had already reached capacity.
Another safety measure that the park put into place was measuring the temperature of each visitor before they entered the park. Considering how packed everyone was, and for such a long time we might add, many are questioning whether these safety measures are enough to keep the virus from creating another outbreak.
Afterall, still not much is known about Covid-19. If we let things go back to normal too quickly, we might risk spreading the virus once again. This is why we should adopt as many safety measures as we can and use good judgement when it comes time to reopen non-essential busninesses and turist attractions. It's a difficult sacrifice to make, but it's one that's worth it.
