With recovery well under way, many people are reluctant to talk about the dark days of early 2020.

“I seldom think of or talk about the epidemic unless I have to,” said Lin Wenhua, who volunteered as a driver during the crisis, ferrying health workers around and delivering drugs to those unable to get to hospital.

“It’s the media who wanted to commemorate the so-called one-year anniversary. We just want to forget about it and get on with our lives,” he said.

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Wuhan was the epicentre of the largest public health crisis China has seen, with more than 50,000 people infected and 3,869 killed, according to official figures. Hospitals were stretched to the breaking point, though the situation improved with the building of 16 makeshift ones.

“There have been at least two television dramas aired to commemorate that period and I couldn’t watch for more than five minutes,” said Xiao Ya, a 38-year-old primary schoolteacher who struggled for days to find hospital beds for her parents and herself in early February.

“Nothing in the drama can truly portray what we experienced and how we felt,” she said. “I couldn’t bear to watch it. What’s the point of hanging on those days. We should consider ourselves reborn and move on.”

Xiao said her parents had physically recovered but her mother had been reluctant to leave home since her ordeal.

“They had no idea how they got infected because their daily routine involved nothing but shopping for groceries, so I guess my mother was freaked out even after she recovered. She won’t go out except in my car. No more public transport,” Xiao said.

Another resident, Zhang Huaxue, said his father, Zhang Luyi, a 60-year-old military veteran who contracted Covid-19, needed oxygen at home for months after being released from hospital and still sometimes got tired and had chest pains.

Zhang said he appealed online in early February for help finding beds for his parents, who were eventually admitted with help from a local community agency.

“Many Wuhan residents felt they had been treated unfairly because of the compulsory lockdown and limited medical resources at the beginning, but now I think I should focus on the future instead,” he said.

“Wuhan is a big city with several medical schools and many big hospitals. Would it be better if the coronavirus started in another provincial capital? Probably not. I’d rather hope that lessons can be drawn to advance medicine and urban management than dwelling on the past,” Zhang said.

But he said he only felt that way because his parents had survived, and that people who had lost loved ones might feel bitter about it.

Chen Xi, 18, is still haunted by her experience of the chaos in Wuhan’s hospitals in January.

She said she saw an elderly woman collapse in front her in a hospital and could not erase the image from her mind.

“The wait was so long and everyone around was very sick. I don’t know whether the woman survived or not but I kept thinking of her. Sometimes I dream about her,” Chen said.

Despite the huge personal cost of the epidemic to the residents of Wuhan, those who lived through it said it also brought out people’s good sides.

Zhang said his boss promised all employees at the beginning of the lockdown that they would continue to receive their salaries on time every month, and he was also allowed to leave work in the middle of afternoon to pick up his two children from school because his parents were unable to.

“Wuhan people are more united than I realise,” he said.

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Xiao said she was glad to find her workmates treated her as normal when she returned to school in May, and at a celebratory dinner with them was able to go mask-free, like everyone else.

The experience of finding a hospital bed through the neighbourhood community and being helped by people during the process made her sign up for volunteer work after Wuhan ended its lockdown.

“I help out in the neighbourhood community every week,” she said. “A lot of bad things have happened in Wuhan and so did a lot of good deeds. The epidemic made us more united and be more friendly to others.”

Although people have regained their confidence, with some referring to the city as the “safest in the world”, the arrival of winter means Wuhan’s authorities are still on high alert.

The wearing of face masks and temperature checks are mandatory in public places, and security guards check people’s personal health declaration codes at shopping malls, hospitals, airports and train stations. Tissues and cotton buds are placed next to lifts for people to use when pressing buttons.

In hospitals, staff are given regular tests and visitors to inpatient facilities are obliged to present a negative test report.

In recent months, outbreaks have been reported at ports among workers handling frozen food from overseas, as well at wholesale markets, similar to the one where the global health crisis began.

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At the Baishazhou Seafood Market, which handles imported goods, access to different areas is closely controlled and workers wear protective suits. Warnings are broadcast on loudspeakers that all goods being sold there must have a coronavirus inspection report and that visitors must not remove their masks.

Some vendors from Huanan have relocated to the Sijimei Seafood Wholesale Market on the outskirts of the city and said they were used to the frequent tests and inspections.

A woman surnamed Li who sells king crabs imported from Canada and lobsters from the United States said workers at Sijimei were tested regularly for the coronavirus and had to provide a negative report to be able to collect goods from customs.

Vendors were supposed to wear a mask at all times inside the market, even if there was no one else around, but she said people did not always comply.

“I keep a box of masks on the desk so I’m ready at any time,” she said. “If we are seen without one, we will be scolded or fined 50 to 100 yuan (US$7.66 to US$15.31) by the market management.”