5 years after Corona.. How has life become in Wuhan, China?

Five years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the pre-construction hospital that was hastily built in 10 days in Wuhan, where the virus originated, is abandoned as residents and authorities turn the page on the health crisis.

Thousands of workers built the now-abandoned Huoshenshan Hospital, behind walls in this central Chinese city where the virus was first detected.

Isolating the city of Wuhan

On January 23, 2020, to combat the spread of an unknown virus at the time, the Wuhan authorities announced a complete lockdown of the city, which lasted for 76 days.

This was the beginning of the implementation of a strict health policy in China based on monitoring movement, imposing a mandatory quarantine, and conducting tests to detect infection, which foreshadowed the global unrest that followed.

Today, the city’s crowded shopping areas and traffic congestion seem a far cry from the completely deserted streets and hospitals full of patients that marked the world’s first lockdown to contain the Corona virus.

Wuhan is the city of heroes

One of the rare places to commemorate the isolation is next to the former Huoshenshan Hospital, a gas station that also serves as a “Covid-19 epidemic outreach base.”

On one wall is the isolation timeline with faded photos of President Xi Jinping, who visited Wuhan in March 2020.

There is a small building that houses another gallery, but it opens “only when officials come to visit,” one employee said.

What is certain is that the city has regained the pulse of life that it lost during the outbreak of the Covid pandemic.

In the morning, residents flock to the crowded market on Shanhaiguan Street that specializes in breakfast.

On the upscale Chuhei Hanji shopping street, people come to walk their dogs, and young people wear the latest fashions.

Chen Ziyi, a resident of the city, believes that the bad reputation that attached to Wuhan during the pandemic, in the end, had a somewhat positive effect, which led to an influx of tourists in large numbers.

She says: “Everyone has become more interested in Wuhan, which is known today as the City of Heroes.”

A new life has begun

“People are moving on, and these memories are far away for them,” said Jack, a 20-year-old Wuhan resident.

He was a student during isolation, and spent a large portion of his school year learning remotely.

He continued, days before the fifth anniversary of the impeachment: “We always have the impression that these years were very difficult, but a new life began.”

At the site that hosted the Huanan Market, where scientists believe the virus may have passed from animals to humans, a blue wall was built to hide abandoned stalls.

Huanan New Market

There was a lot of criticism on the international scene about the Chinese authorities’ cover-up of the first cases in December 2019.

The old market stalls were moved to a new area outside the city centre.

About 10 vendors in the “New Huanan Market,” as it is called today, refuse to talk about the issue.

A stall owner said on condition of anonymity, “Business is no longer as good as it used to be.”