Key points: On the second floor of a residential building in northwest Wuhan, John Zhu has made his home a fortress against the virus. His wife and 13-year-old

Key points: On the second floor of a residential building in northwest Wuhan, John Zhu has made his home a fortress against the virus. His wife and 13-year-old son have not stepped out of the apartment in 46 days. He has emerged only briefly to pick up grocery deliveries and, twice, to bring food to the family dog, A’han, which is alone in his mother’s house. Mr. Zhu has succeeded in keeping his family safe from the virus – and A’han alive – even as three people in his apartment complex contracted COVID-19 and almost 2,400 have died in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicentre of the outbreak. But weeks of isolation have poisoned Mr. Zhu’s family life, wiped out his income and corroded his trust in the public institutions that, he believes, failed to properly respond to the virus until it was too late – and have now kept him locked up long after its peak. With no income, they are eating into savings to survive, and the price of groceries has doubled. He has only been able to bring food to A’han twice in six weeks. A’han has grown weak and thin, but Mr. Zhu’s apartment complex has told him he cannot bring the dog home. He feels trapped by thoughts of the epidemic. He doesn’t read anymore and instead passes the days watching mindless sitcoms, a stream of unmemorable entertainment that has left his memory of time under lockdown hazy. The mental pressure has not, however, diminished his feelings about the measures taken in Wuhan. He offers himself as a warning to other cities and countries contemplating the same. “As someone who has personally experienced the whole process, I have to say that the Wuhan lockdown might not be as positive as it has been perceived by the outside world,” he said. It “worsened public panic and destroyed order. … It is extraordinarily terrible.”