One night in Wuhan: COVID-19's original epicentre re-learns how to party

In a crowded Wuhan hall, Zhang Qiong wipes birthday cake from her face after a food fight with her friends. "After experiencing the first wave of epidemic in Wuhan and then the liberation, I feel like I'm living a second life," says Zhang, 29, who works in a textiles shop in the central Chinese city that was the original epicentre of COVID-19.

Outside, maskless partygoers spill onto the streets, smoking and playing street games with toy machine guns and balloons.

Nightlife in Wuhan is back in full swing almost seven months after the city lifted its stringent lockdown and the city's young partygoers are embracing the catharsis.

People dance at a park at night, almost a year after the global outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan.

A woman eats street food at night in Wuhan.

People put cream from a birthday cake on each other, almost a year after the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease in Wuhan

In scenes unimaginable in many cities around the world reeling under a resurgence of the pandemic, young Wuhan residents during a recent night out crowd-surfed, ate street food and packed the city's nightclubs as they looked to make up for lost time.

The revival of the city's hard-hit nightlife economy offers a glimpse into a post-pandemic lifestyle that many hope will become a reality in 2021, after the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.

Wuhan hasn't reported a new locally transmitted case of the disease since May 10, after undergoing one of the strictest lockdowns worldwide. | Waitress's stand at the entrance of a nightclub in Wuhan.

The city of 11 million was shut off from the rest of China in a surprise overnight lockdown beginning Jan 23, with road blocks erected and planes, trains and buses barred from entering the city.

Almost 3,900 of China's 4,634 recorded COVID-19 deaths occurred in the industrial city.