Erisa, not her real name, is a friend and former student of mine from when I taught in Shanghai fifteen years ago. She is a woman in her thirties, originally from Wuhan. In March, she agreed to an online interview in English, describing what life was like for her and her family during the Covid-19 lockdown in her hometown more than eighteen months ago. This is one in a collection of interviews with people who became stuck or stranded during the pandemic, usually in foreign countries. The interviews as a whole document how people from around the world coped with life in new and very unexpected circumstances. Erisa’s is the only interview with someone stuck in their own country. It details, from an individual perspective, what life was like in Wuhan as Covid-19 spread in the city of 11 million people, and as the Chinese government implemented the largest lockdown in human history.

This is her story, in her own words.

‘The date is imprinted in my memory: 21 January 2020. It was the day I went back to Wuhan for the annual Chinese spring festival holiday. My sister had given me a call and told me that the stores in Wuhan had all sold out of masks. I told her I thought the talk about a virus was just a rumour, but she said that there were news reports that Dr Zhong Nanshan had gone to Wuhan. Dr Zhong Nanshan is a highly respected doctor in China. In 2003 he led research into the Sars virus. So, I went to several pharmacies in Suzhou, and they had also sold out of masks. That’s when I realised that the situation must be very serious.

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• Tags: China, COVID-19, Issue 24, James Weitz, Wuhan