Wuhan, before and after the coronations

The Chinese ground-zero city of Wuhan is cautiously reopening as new coronavirus cases decrease. AFP was in the virus-stricken city on the day that the lockdown started, January 23, and now provides a comparative look after more than two months of lockdown.

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What started as an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory has received a second major boost from the Trump administration. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says China has a history of running substandard laboratories.

A Chinese manufacturer, Beijing Applied Biological Technologies Co. Ltd. (XABT), is ramping up production of its COVID-19 test kits. Wuhan was given a fresh jolt when several new local infections emerged last weekend after more than a month in which none were reported.

The Chinese city of Wuhan, original epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, plans to conduct tests on its entire population of 11 million people after new cases emerge for the first time in weeks. People on the streets and dancing on the banks of the Yangtze River consider the planned tests positive and reassuring.

Football enthusiasts in Wuhan are finally able to return to the pitch after a three-month lockdown was lifted in the former epicentre of the novel coronavirus.

Fans of Wuhan Zall, the Chinese Super League club from the epicentre of the coronavirus, on Sunday attended their first match since the pandemic -- and were rewarded as their team fought back to draw 2-2.

Since coming to power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched an unprecedented crusade against press freedom. Facing censorship, threats from police and sometimes jail, the last few independent reporters - those who don't work for state media serving Communist Party propaganda - are no longer able to sell their articles. Recently, at least four citizen journalists, who were investigating the real death toll from the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan, have disappeared. More than six months after their arrests, there is still no trace of them. Our correspondents report.

The global death toll from the new coronavirus, which emerged less than a year ago in China and has swept across the world, passed one million on Sunday. As the ground zero of the outbreak, the central Chinese city of Wuhan now appears to have controlled the disease.

Musicians from Wuhan perform at the opening concert of the Beijing Music Festival to commemorate China's fight against the virus in 2020. The concert 'Untitled: Dedicated to 2020' is a symphony composed by Wuhan composer Zou ye, which was inspired by China's anti-epidemic process. Under the baton of the composer, musicians and singers from Wuhan performed the work on stage to mourn the dead and express respect to those who have contributed to the fight against the virus.

One year after the coronavirus began spreading from Wuhan, some of those who lost family members are no nearer to closure. Zhong Hanneng still struggles to sleep or eat following the death of her son, while Liu Pei'en shut down his business and converted to Buddhism to try to make sense of his father's death.

When the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan and the Chinese city went into a strict 76-day lockdown, Wang Fan resolved to commemorate the turbulent period in the way he knew best -- through beer.