Date: February 24th, 2020

Zhangwan District in Shiyan City, Hubei Province, is the first administrative region in China to implement “wartime control” in response to the coronavirus outbreak. From Feb. 13 onwards, all buildings have been completely closed. Government staff are delivering supplies to each community.

On the afternoon of Feb. 24, Tan Minhua, a 71-year-old retired worker from Dongfeng Automobile factory, was found dead in his home by a community worker who went to his residence to take his temperature. There, he found Tan’s grandson. Less than six years old, the boy might have spent three days alone with Tan’s dead body. The child said he had survived eating cookies.

According to Chinese state media, the child’s father is working in Liuzhou City, Guangxi Province, and could not return home immediately.

This tragedy is the second of its kind reported in Hubei province in the past month. The first incident took place on Jan. 29, when Yan Cheng, a 17-year-old with cerebral palsy in Hongan County, Hubei province, starved to death at home after his father developed a fever and was taken away for quarantine.

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