Coronavirus put more than 1/3 of the global population under lockdown. The epidemic is believed to have started in November 2019 in China's Wuhan. I arrived there in December and started working at a local university.Zhang - one of my students - was the first to tell me about a mysterious disease that develops in another district of the city. “It doesn't concern us” – he said calmly. It was about 10-15 km from my university. By that time, there were only a few people hospitalized. There have not been any deaths yet. "It's just some kind of flu or something" - Zhang said with conviction. From then on, I began following reports from various outlets.On January 23, Wuhan City was shut off from the rest of the world and placed under an unprecedented quarantine. Sanitation workers were spraying streets. Staff with biometric devices appeared in Walmart. Corona fears triggered panic buying. Some people threw their pets out of the windows for fear they are carriers. All bridges and tunnels, as well as movement between city districts, were blocked. Schools and universities have canceled the start of the next semester. In other Chinese provinces, citizens were banned from leaving their homes, with the option of leaving every two days to replenish their food supply. Some people shouted from the balconies "Wuhan Jiayou!" ("Be strong, Wuhan!").Despite the panic, I felt compelled to go out and document the outbreak of the new type of coronavirus. Among my subjects: the construction of a new hospital built in 10 days, biosecurity checkpoints, empty streets, airport, and evacuation from Wuhan.
Arek Rataj (b. 1983) is an independent photographer, journalist, and educator. He lectured Visual Communication at Jianghan University in Wuhan and witnessed the lockdown of 11 million people, which is believed to be without precedent in public health history. After Wuhan's shutdown on 23 January, he collaborated with the Associated Press and photographed daily life at the dawn of the new COVID-19 pandemic.
