COVID-19 and Grassroots Community Organizing in Wuhan, China

As the epicentre of COVID-19 outbreak in China, Wuhan implemented some of the most stringent quarantine measures yet seen globally. Between January 23 and April 8, the city of 11 million people was in lockdown and all those who had not already left its confines for the annual Spring Festival (about 9 million people) were quarantined within the city (Ma and Zhuang 2020). In these circumstances, their need to access food posed a serious challenge. Food insecurity, which in China had been a problem for only a small number of households, suddenly became the reality for a significant proportion of the city’s population (Zhong et al 2020).