The Chinese city of Xi’an has been closed for nearly two weeks, with no end in sight

The days are similar, but Metz can get along well with it. “I can still do my job and spend a lot of time with my family. Every now and then I go for a run around our apartment. I ran 10km last week, always the same 600m lap. It just shows how small it is.”, he says with a laugh.

Lots of support

According to Metz, there is a lot of support among the population for the strict approach. “Of course, everyone would like to go back to the streets, but people still believe that this is the best way to stop the outbreak. Before that, China had not been affected by the epidemic for a long time, so people still believed in the need to respond quickly and seriously. “They intervened to restore their freedom.”

He also noted that people had already taken action before the lockdown was announced. “Earlier in the fall, quite a few infections were already reported. Then I saw people staying indoors more and wearing a mouth covering more often.”

And according to Metz, in fact, only a very small group are affected by the shutdown. “There are about 13 million people out of the 1.4 billion people. The rest can do something. Most people here think that’s good and it seems to work.”

The end is not in sight

It is not known how long the closure will last. “The authorities are not announcing an end date here, so we’ll have to wait and see.” Metz takes into account that it may take a while, especially with the Winter Olympics approaching.

“The authorities may not want to take the risk and wait for the lockdown to be lifted until after the Olympics. For the Dutch it will be difficult to understand, but they understand here. If we reduce the chance that the matches if we don’t play, we will.”