Built in 10 days at the start of the pandemic and symbol of Chinese anti-Covid mobilization, the prefabricated hospital in Wuhan is now abandoned: five years later, residents and authorities have moved on.
Hidden behind fences, the now disused Huoshenshan hospital was built by thousands of workers in this metropolis in central China where the virus was first detected.
On January 23, 2020, faced with the spread of a then unknown virus, the Wuhan authorities declared total confinement of the city – which would last a total of 76 days.
It was the kick-off in China of a strict health policy of movement control, compulsory quarantines and then tests, which foreshadowed the global upheavals to come.
Today, the city’s bustling shopping districts and traffic jams seem light years away from the completely deserted streets and crowded hospitals, symbolic of the planet’s first anti-Covid lockdown.
“People are moving on. These memories are becoming more and more blurred,” Jack He, a 20-year-old student who lives in Wuhan, told AFP.
A high school student during confinement, he had spent a large part of his school year taking online courses at home.
“We always have the impression that these years have really been difficult (…) But a new life has begun,” he emphasizes, a few days before the fifth anniversary of confinement.
On the site which hosted the Huanan market, where scientists believe that the virus could have passed from animals to humans, a light blue wall was built to hide the now disused stalls.
– Journalists followed –
When AFP journalists visited, workers were installing decorations for Chinese New Year on the windows of the second floor of the market, where there are still opticians’ shops.
There is no sign to remind you of the importance of the place.
In truth, the city does not really have a place to pay tribute to the victims of the pandemic.
Official commemorations of the confinement emphasize the heroism of doctors and the effectiveness of measures against the epidemic. Despite criticism, often heard internationally, of the authorities’ cover-up of the first cases in December 2019.
The old market stalls have been moved to a new area outside the city center.
-But the pandemic remains a sensitive subject. Around ten sellers in this “new Huanan market”, as it is called, refuse to talk about it.
The owner of a stand, however, declared, on condition of anonymity, that “business is no longer as good as before.”
Another explains that market managers sent images from surveillance cameras showing AFP journalists to an online discussion group, bringing together sellers in particular, and calling not to accept their interview requests.
At least one car followed the AFP reporters during their stay in Wuhan.
– “Hero” –
One of the few places of public commemoration of the confinement is next to the former Huoshenshan hospital: a gas station which also serves as an “education base for the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic”.
One wall displays a timeline of the lockdown, with faded photographs of President Xi Jinping, who visited Wuhan in March 2020.
An employee told AFP that a small building located behind the establishment’s convenience store housed another exhibition, but that it now only opens “when managers come to visit it.”
The city has, it is true, already regained its pre-Covid excitement a long time ago.
In the morning, locals flock to the lively market on Shanhaiguan Street, specializing in breakfasts, where they come to enjoy noodles or donuts.
On the upscale shopping street of Chuhe Hanjie, people come to walk their dogs and young people are dressed in the latest fashions, while others wait to order trendy milk teas.
A 40-year-old resident, Chen Ziyi, believes that the notoriety acquired by the city during the pandemic has ultimately had a rather positive effect, leading to an influx of tourists.
“Everyone is more interested in Wuhan now,” she says. “They say Wuhan is the city of heroes.”
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