STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
In the last few years, I've often thought of this line at the beginning of a famous novel by Kurt Vonnegut. The line is, Listen - Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. It's the story of a World War II veteran who feels like he's constantly moving back and forth from the past to the present to the past again, even to the future. And that line has come to mind for me repeatedly since the beginning of the pandemic. It just constantly feels like things just happened a minute ago, except they...
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Or so long ago.
INSKEEP: Or so long - a decade ago.
FADEL: Yeah.
INSKEEP: It's just hard to stay oriented. We're unstuck in time. And I mention that because, hard as it is to believe, news clips like this one from CBS are nearly five years old.
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MAURICE DUBOIS: We're going to begin here with the outbreak of a mystery virus in China that now has the World Health Organization on edge.
INSKEEP: Almost five years ago - that was the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The epicenter was Wuhan in central China. NPR's John Ruwitch went back five years later to get a sense of what's changed and what has not.
JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: Many scientists think ground zero was here at the Huanan Seafood Market, where the first cluster of COVID-19 cases was identified. The building still stands, surrounded by a makeshift blue wall.
So the seafood market part of it, the ground floor area, is closed, but upstairs are glasses stores. We're going to see if we can get in.
There are dozens of shops on the second floor selling eyeglasses and contact lenses. We asked several people working here if we could interview them about life in Wuhan today, but everyone refused.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: In the city where it all began, at the very place where the deadly pandemic may have started, COVID remains a sensitive subject. In some ways, it seems Wuhan has moved on. In others, it seems like it can't. The official narrative is that this is a city of heroes.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: In the early days, that spirit was embodied in part by the Leishenshan Hospital, a 1,600-bed facility that was built in just 12 days as cases mounted. Today, the one-story prefab wards sit empty behind a fence, overgrown with weeds. We walk the perimeter, and a guard says no pictures are allowed.
UNIDENTIFIED GUARD: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: (Speaking Mandarin). The abandoned hospital is still bao mi, he says - secret, confidential. We stop at a convenience store that faces the hospital. A clerk, who only gave her surname, Li, says she's heard it'll soon be torn down and replaced by new apartments.
LI: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: She thinks they should at least leave a monument of some kind, though. But who knows? On the surface, life in this city of about 11 million people has returned to more normal rhythms. In the evening, retirees practice their ballroom dancing in a plaza. They wear big smiles, tight pants and appear care-free.
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UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing in non-English language).
RUWITCH: For 43-year-old Lacey Zhao, though, trauma from the pandemic is ever-present. We meet at a coffee shop near the dancers, and she says she thinks most people here have moved on, but she can't, not completely.
LACEY ZHAO: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: In December 2019, weeks before the pandemic was declared, her extended family met at a restaurant to celebrate the coming Lunar New Year. There were rumors of mysterious pneumonia cases around town, but they didn't think much of it.
ZHAO: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: Officials were saying nothing. But a few days later, her father developed a fever. Then she got sick.
ZHAO: (Through interpreter) We were among the first group of people infected.
RUWITCH: COVID-19 was already spreading in December, and she believes the authorities knew it, but they kept the public in the dark. Beijing denies a cover-up.
ZHAO: (Through interpreter) People didn't know anything about it. We didn't know that the virus was highly contagious, deadly and spreading rapidly. We knew nothing.
RUWITCH: If the government had been open and honest, she says, her family might have avoided that fateful gathering.
ZHAO: (Through interpreter) That meal ended up changing the lives of our families.
RUWITCH: Zhao's father died days later in a hospital hallway. Zhao herself spent about 40 days in hospital, and Wuhan was sealed off from the outside world for more than two terrifying months. When the lockdown was finally lifted in April, the authorities said 3,869 people had died of COVID in Wuhan. That tally never moved again. Scientists and U.S. intelligence agencies say that they have overwhelming evidence that the outbreak started in Wuhan, though there is still disagreement over exactly how it began. Many scientists point to genetic and epidemiological evidence that the virus came from animals in the Huanan market. Others think it's likely to have leaked from a lab in this city.
ZHAO: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: But we talked to people in Wuhan who believe a theory floated by the Chinese government - that American military athletes brought the virus to China.
ZHAO: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: Zhao says, ultimately, the authorities don't want to be challenged. When her family and others tried to build a memorial, the government blocked it.
ZHAO: (Through interpreter) They want it to be forgotten, and they're hiding the truth so that no one will ever bring it up again.
RUWITCH: Across town, Wendy Li says her husband died in that first wave too. Her family joined others in late 2020 to try to sue the government for the alleged cover-up. But the case was thrown out. They're troublemakers in the eyes of the authorities. She asked NPR to use her English name and alter her voice because she's worried about repercussions for speaking out.
WENDY LI: (Through interpreter) You call this a city of heroes. So does that mean my husband was a hero? And how do you treat your heroes?
RUWITCH: There's been no compensation, she says. The government has never admitted wrongdoing. Li says the experience of loss and injustice has left her isolated.
W LI: (Through interpreter) It's lonely. There are things we cannot say to others. And even if we do, they won't get it.
RUWITCH: Li has a daughter in middle school. And she hopes she'll eventually go abroad and leave China to live, Li says, with dignity. As for herself, she's lost hope that there will ever be justice for her husband, but she feels strongly about one thing.
W LI: (Through interpreter) I believe that as a human being, I should leave some kind of trace. I'm not an animal or a tool.
RUWITCH: Stories from the early days of the pandemic need to be told, she says. And she thinks, until the authorities address the root cause and take responsibility, a tragedy like COVID-19 is all but guaranteed to happen in China again.
John Ruwitch, NPR News, Wuhan China.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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