More than 11,000 students gathered in Wuhan last Sunday for a massive graduation ceremony, more than a year after the city was hit by the first global outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Students in their graduation uniforms and hats sat in suffocatingly crowded rows, with no social distances or masks at the ceremony, held at a sports stadium at the University of Central China. The graduation ceremony came amid a resurgence of a Covid-19 origin case that was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
A huge red banner welcomed the graduates, more than 2,200 of whom were students who could not attend their graduation last year due to strict coronavirus restrictions . “Welcoming the graduates of 2020. We wish you a wonderful future,” the banner read.
The Covid-19 first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, sending the city of 11 million people into one of the strictest lockdowns in the world.
Restrictions were not eased until April, when the city reopened after 76 days of lockdown, although schools remained closed for longer.
The city hosted limited graduation ceremonies last year, with Uhan University hosting an online event mostly in June 2020. The students and faculty who went all wore masks.
China has since severely curtailed the epidemic, while maintaining high precautions, with strict border controls, quarantines, mandatory online “health codes” and various restrictions on domestic travel.
There has been growing controversy over how the virus first appeared in humans – either through contact with animals at a market in Wuhan or because of a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
China says it is not responsible for the pandemic and has dismissed as conspiracy theories allegations that the disease may have been caused by humans.
Last month, however, US President Joe Biden ordered the US intelligence service to report in the next three months whether the Covid-19 virus first appeared in China from an animal or a laboratory accident .
UK ministers have also called on China to cooperate fully with researchers on the origins of the disease.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tentros Adhanom said a few days ago that Beijing had not fully cooperated, while urging more “transparency” in the ongoing investigation.
“We need cooperation from the Chinese side. “We need transparency to understand and know or find the origin of this virus.”
“There have been difficulties in data sharing, especially in raw data. We hope for better cooperation and transparency in the next phase,” he told a news conference.
