"The pandemic has left people with secondary trauma, but it is invisible," says 34-year-old social worker and activist Guo Jing.
"That frustrates me a lot."
On January 23, 2020, Wuhan became the first city in the world to be quarantined due to COVID-19.
About 11 million residents of the Chinese metropolis, including Guo, were trapped in their homes.
She witnessed mass business closures, population suffering, and widespread government abuse.
"It was never discussed after quarantine..." she says.
The quarantine in Wuhan, which lasted 76 days, marked the beginning of the global lockdown due to the pandemic.
For the young people who experienced it, it was an event that continues to impact their lives.
"Five years is short in historical terms, but very significant for young people," says Professor Dali Yang of the University of Chicago, in the United States (US).
"As Wuhan was the place where the pandemic broke out, many residents still have fears as a result of everything they have experienced."
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Unexpected storm
It all started towards the end of 2019, when the Wuhan Health Commission announced that 27 cases had been recorded. infection with an unknown virus.
Despite mounting evidence of human-to-human transmission and overwhelmed hospitals, local authorities claimed the situation could be "calmed down and under control," and even organized a grand celebration for 10.000 families.
The official message that the situation would calm down was only a mask for the growing danger.
When Guo Jing saw that flu medicine had disappeared from the shelves, she wasn't too worried.
"I didn't think things would get any worse," she says.
Twenty-four-year-old Chesnat (not his real name) told the BBC Chinese service how, despite rumors of quarantine, he continued his usual preparations for the Lunar New Year.
"I heard stories that they were going to lock down the city, but I still went to lunch with friends."
"We didn't think it was anything serious."
"My mother almost went to Huanan Market to buy seafood, but the taxi driver told her that something suspicious was going on there, so she changed her plan."
Health officials revealed that the first cases appeared at the Huanan Seafood Market, where wild animals were allegedly sold for food.
And then at 2:30 a.m. local time on January 23, 2020 (17:30 p.m. CET on January 22), just two days before the Lunar New Year, Beijing suddenly ordered a complete lockdown of Wuhan.
In the next three months, close to 3.900 deaths, although many believe the actual number was considerably higher.
Tristan Liu, a 33-year-old Taiwanese woman who worked in Wuhan, witnessed the human toll.
"The crematoriums were overcrowded, and there were no ambulances."
"The bodies of the deceased lay in the houses for days.
"When someone finally came to collect them, no one from the family could accompany the remains to the crematorium."
Many died alone.
As the crisis deepened, Liu also faced a personal dilemma.
When the Taiwanese government organized evacuation flights, she was unable to bring her partner from mainland China because at the time, Taiwan's same-sex marriage law did not apply to Chinese citizens.
"I couldn't leave my girlfriend," Liu told BBC Chinese.
Their situation was becoming increasingly difficult.
Officials sealed off their apartment and installed an alarm on the front door.
Later, the entrance to the building was closed with metal plates and only a small opening was left for food delivery.
The time spent in such a confined space left its consequences.
When a protest in a nearby community turned violent, Yang, Liu's girlfriend, was desperate to at least see what was happening outside, after a long isolation.
She tried to squeeze through the food delivery opening and in the process suffered a serious cut on her ankle.
"We went to the hospital, but no one had time to examine her," Liu says.
"That's why we bandaged the wound ourselves."
'Without a shred of humanity'
The strict measures that have been introduced have raised many questions about politics and human rights.
Chesnat, who previously used VPN (virtual private network) just for fun, he began to uncover numerous evidence of abuses by officials.
"Some civil servants behaved like gangsters," he claims, describing how some broke into homes, beat elderly residents and prevented food deliveries.
"People who support the government justify it by protecting public health, but I don't see a shred of humanity in it."
The denial of people's rights was particularly evident in the tragic case of the doctor Li Wenliang, the first doctor to try to warn colleagues about a SARS-like virus in late 2019.
Dr Li was accused of "spreading false comments".
He later died of a virus at the age of 34, and his death brought people to their senses.
"I remember feeling both anger and sadness," Chesnutt says.
"He showed professional responsibility, but they didn't listen to him, and he was even punished for it."
"It's a budding bureaucracy and it really pissed me off."
As Chestnut's anger boiled over, Sung Ning (not his real name), an IT worker in his 30s, told the BBC he was not surprised.
"I thought that was exactly what would happen at that moment in China."
"That's normal in China. They're trying to control public opinion first and foremost."
"I think for the Chinese government, the quarantine in this city was an experiment in how to establish stronger control."
"That's probably even more frightening," says Guo Jing.
Despite the surveillance, Guo Jing found ways to resist - she organized video calls with friends and a campaign against domestic violence during quarantine, for which she later said she was "harassed by the police", but she does not want to reveal the details.
"The quarantine itself didn't harm me, but the abuse of power did."
Long-term impact
The quarantine in Wuhan was lifted on April 8, 2020, but the model was later applied across China, which implemented a strict "zero Covid policy" for almost three years.
"None of us could have imagined that it would take this long," says Tristan Liu.
"We were in shock."
Strict measures were abandoned due to mass "white paper" protests nationwide by the end of 2022.
Named after the blank papers that symbolized censorship, the protests were launched after fire in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, in northwest China, where there were victims, and many blamed restrictive measures against the coronavirus for their deaths.
Although Beijing claimed to "put the people first," these measures have had profound consequences for an entire generation of Chinese youth.
Some, like comrades Guo Jing, have left the country due to what they say is "constant police harassment."
Others have remained in the country, but are facing new challenges, such as job layoffs and record youth unemployment recorded in 2023.
"Everything is cheaper now, but no one is spending," says Chesnutt.
"Something has fundamentally changed and we can't go back to the old way."
Professor Dali Yang of the University of Chicago believes that the coronavirus has left long-lasting consequences for the "Covid generation."
Long-term isolation has also affected social skills and employment opportunities, so many graduates have turned to other jobs, such as taxi driving.
"It's not just about finding a job, but about the potential lifelong consequences."
"They don't build professional skills and their careers will stagnate. Ultimately, this can affect major life decisions - from marriage to family planning," says Dali Yang.
Five years later, Professor Yang emphasizes that transparency is necessary to overcome collective trauma, but adds that Beijing is systematically stifling any discussion about the events in Wuhan.
The World Health Organization (WHO) continues to require Kine to provide information about the origin of the virus.
China claims that it distributed everything "as soon as possible" and rejects allegations of "political manipulation".
Efforts to control the narrative continue within China's borders.
Journalist Zhang Zhang sentenced to four years in prison for documenting the epidemic in Wuhan.
A quarantine film by director Lou Ye has been banned in mainland China, and discussions on social media have been censored.
"The government has become more sophisticated in suppressing dissent," Chesnat says.
"And people are numb to social injustice."
Sung Ning believes the closure prevented a complete collapse of hospitals, but he remains outraged by the cover-up of early information.
Like many others, he stopped expecting answers:
"We don't know the truth here, not under this government."
"[The government] believes that people don't deserve to know the truth."
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