RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On February 9th last year, Brazilian Air Force (FAB) planes landed in Goiás with 34 Brazilians who had been in Wuhan, China. The city was the epicenter of the coronavirus at the time. But a year later, some of the rescued Brazilians say that staying in China would have been preferable.
“Everyone says that if we had known what [Brazil] would be like today, we wouldn’t have come back here,” said Adrielly Eger, a model from Santa Catarina who was flown to Brazil from Wuhan.
When the Brazilians came from Wuhan, Brazil had no confirmed Covid-19 cases yet. Currently, it is the country with the third-highest number of covid-19 cases in the world, behind the United States and India, and is nearing 10 million total cases. In contrast, China has recorded just over 100,000 cases, which places it 82nd in the world. The figures are from John Hopkins University.
“They [the Chinese] were consistent. When it was necessary, they closed everything, they were radical. Here [in Brazil] it was total chaos. There was no dialogue between states, municipalities, government. The president wanted to open, the rest wanted to close. That’s why the crisis has lasted so long,” said an analyst from Minas Gerais, Vitor Campos, also rescued from Wuhan.
The frustration for having left China did not only affect Brazilians. British Matt Raw also said he regrets it. The British left China before the Brazilians, in late January 2020.
“We would have been much safer and freer had we stayed in China. They [the Chinese] were quick and effective and closed off the cities, it was the right thing to do,” said Raw.
Meanwhile, São Paulo native Kenyiti Shindo, who stayed behind in Wuhan, said that the situation in the Chinese city “is virtually normal.”
“We wear masks when we go into closed spaces, such as bars, restaurants or shopping malls. Of course there is concern that the virus will return, but everything is working as before.”
Source: UOL