One year later, Wuhan, the first post-coronavirus pandemic city

In official exhibitions and in the media, Wuhan is celebrated as the “city of heroes”, a triumph of the Chinese Communist Party.

All over China, mentions of deaths are silent.

Wuhan has yet to release statistics on cremations in the first quarter of last year, several months after they would normally have been reported. Freelance writers and journalists who even mildly dispute the official laudatory accounts of the Wuhan crisis have been vilified in the Chinese media, detained or even jailed.

“It has always been so in China. How many tens of millions died in the Great Leap famine? How much in the Cultural Revolution, ”says Ai Xiaoming, a retired Wuhan professor who, like many locals, has kept an online diary about the lockdown. “Everything can be forgotten over time. You don’t see, hear, or report it.

Many in Wuhan are now adopting the Chinese government’s version of events and saying their “city of heroes” fought a proud fight against a virus that has spread to the humble, wealthier countries. Some residents view early failures in a more lenient light, having seen the trail of calamities in the United States and other democracies.

“It’s not bragging either,” said Huang Qing, 55, sitting on a bench in East Lake Park with her husband, sharing a small bottle of white wine. Last winter, before the ban on outings, residents gathered in the park to share their concerns. Now elderly couples and parents with young children walk among the weeping willows, enjoying the sun.

“The Wuhan epidemic has been well, very well managed,” she said. “It fully showed the superiority of Chinese policies.”

All over Wuhan, people learned to cheer crowds again, expiring after a year when the very act of breathing was dangerous.

Yitang Crawfish Restaurant, which specializes in the popular Wuhan dish, is fully booked except for a table near the front door. A marriage fair, where worried parents swap information about potential spouses against their unmarried adult children, is back on track. At Happy Valley Wuhan Theme Park, people weave their way around on rides and roller coasters.