Initially, there was some lightheartedness in posts. One Weibo user commented it was "the perfect time" to stay home and play a mobile phone game called Plague Inc.
But as the situation has worsened, people in Wuhan, the city that's the epicenter of the outbreak, and other affected areas in China are glued to their mobile phones. They're using apps like Weibo, Facebook and Twitter to express their fear and anger — and to cry for help.
Many people are posting about how tough it is to care for themselves and their families.
A Wuhan woman with Weibo username 半夏春秋 shared her experience on Thursday evening. She and her husband were running a fever. They feared they were infected with the coronavirus and wanted to be isolated from their small children, ages 3 years and 4 months. A relative was willing to come to Wuhan to pick up the children, but the city's lockdown stood in the way.
"I've cried and cried," she said in her post. "I have nowhere to turn to now. I can't stop crying when I see my two lovely children. Please help me."
She directed her comments at state newspaper People's Daily and a few local newspapers. Her post received over 4,600 comments and has been shared over 26,000 times. Some locals who said they were healthy offered to shelter the children.
Weibo user 星黛露是兔子达菲才是熊 is from a neighboring city east of Wuhan. She posted that her 76-year-old grandfather developed a fever after taking care of her grandmother, who was confirmed as carrying the virus. But no hospital, she wrote, would take him because of a lack of beds.
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