WUHAN : For over six years, 38-year-old Wuhan restaurant owner Lai Yun started most days the same way - with a trip to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, just ten minutes walk from his house."I'd send the kids to school, have breakfast and then walk over to the market.
It was very convenient," he said.That changed on Dec. 31, 2019, after four cases of a mystery pneumonia were linked to the market and it was shuttered overnight.
By the end of the month, the city had begun a gruelling 76-day lockdown that came with just hours notice and barred people from leaving their homes.Almost a year since the outbreak began, COVID-19 has claimed more than 1.5 million lives, and the Wuhan wet market where it was initially detected stands empty even as.