It’s been three years since Yang Min’s only child, Yuxi, died. The 24-year-old had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was admitted to hospital in mid-January 2020 in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the earliest coronavirus cases were detected.
Wuhan was the first place in China – and the world – to be locked down to stop the spread of Covid. The announcement came in the early hours of 23 January and it sent people, scared and uncertain, fleeing into the night.
That city-wide lockdown, lasting 76 days, would become integral to China’s zero-Covid playbook. The country has now scrapped the policy and recently announced that the current wave, driven by a hasty reopening, is drawing to a close.
