- The residents are worried about food running out, getting the virus from other people in the city, and how to stay entertained as they largely choose to stay in their homes.
- The city is shipping in food and building hospitals in just days, while residents are making memes as they wait for things to return to normal.
- This is what life in the city is like under quarantine, where China is enforcing increasingly stricter measures.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .
China's unprecedented quarantine of 11 million people in Wuhan is 2 weeks old. Here's what it is like in the isolated city.
The 11 million residents of Wuhan, China, have been under lockdown for two weeks thanks to the deadly coronavirus.
The Chinese city of Wuhan has been under a lockdown for two weeks after it was identified as the epicenter of a deadly coronavirus that has killed more than 630 people around the world.
Photos show how the typically bustling city of 11 million people appears to be a ghost town, and people are shouting support from their balconies and running in their apartments as they wait for word on when the spread of the virus might slow, or their quarantine be lifted.
People are allowed outside, but many are choosing to stay indoors. Those who go outside are faced with screenings and everything being disinfected.
A teenager with cerebral palsy has died after his dad was quarantined, while thousands of pets are at risk of starvation in empty homes.
China is bringing in new and stricter measures, and is now ordering all the city's residents to report their temperatures every day , while public venues have been transformed into makeshift medical centers and the city has built new hospitals in just days.
Here's what the city is like:
The city of Wuhan, China, was placed under a lockdown on January 23, leaving around 11 million people quarantined in the epicenter of the virus.
The Paper/Twitter
China cut off transport links inside and outside the city to try and stop the virus, and ordered places like cinemas and cafes to close.
The World Health Organization called cutting off a city as large as Wuhan "unprecedented in public health history," and said it isn't sure if the strategy will work.
China later extended the measures to other cities, covering around 60 million people, creating what is thought to be the largest quarantine in human history.
People immediately started to stockpile food and fuel worried that supplies would run out with the city cut off.
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Authorities urged people not to stockpile as some stores ran out of meat, vegetables and instant noodles.
But fleets of trucks have been bringing food to the city under orders from the government, which has vowed not to let prices increase. Drivers' temperatures are checked and their trucks are sprayed with disinfectant.
Twitter/Chinese Embassy in Uganda
Some are unsure if they will be paid, but said they volunteered to help the city anyway.
Driver Ma Chenglong said he volunteered straight away.
"When the country is in trouble, we common people have a duty," The New York Times reported .
Here's what a line of trucks looked like in January:
And medical supplies are also constantly arriving into the city.
Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
But because of the travel restrictions, and fears over the virus that can spread from human to human, the streets are largely deserted. This drone footage shows what it's like:
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Drone footage of the city this month shows eerie stillness across the city.
Satellite photos also reveal just how empty the streets are.
Planet Labs Inc / Handout / Reuters
The photos, taken on the city's eighth day of quarantine , show the city looking like a ghost town.
Some people are venturing outside, including to buy supplies. Decorations for Chinese New Year serve as a reminder for how the usually huge holiday is being celebrated much differently this year.
Wuhan
For those that do go shopping, they're met with in-store announcements about how to stop the virus spreading.
Xiaolu Chu/Getty Images/Business Insider
People have largely been staying in their homes. Video footage showed people yelling out of their apartments to support each other, including saying: "Wuhan come on!"
Reddit/Mind_Singularity
The footage, shared on Reddit, shows dozens of residents shouting their support to the city.
You can watch it here:
And state media says that people are reporting running around their apartments running in circles around beds or even running about 62 miles (100 kilometers) in their living room. People are even sharing their progress with each other on social media.
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Source: CNN .
This boredom has inevitably turned into joke and meme creation.
Twitter/Manya Koetse/Weibo/What's on Weibo
Some people are poking fun at the lack of medical masks used to prevent the spread of the illness by doing things like wearing inflatable costumes outside.
Here's an example:
But even as people have sought to find ways to stay connected, some are slipping through the cracks. A 17-year-old with cerebral palsy died after he was left alone for six days as his father was quarantined.
The South China Morning Post reported that Yan Cheng was found dead on January 29.
His father had appealed for help on social media, writing: "I have two disabled sons. My older son Yan Cheng has cerebral palsy. He cannot move his body, he cannot speak or look after himself. He has already been at home by himself for six days, with nobody to bathe him or change his clothes and nothing to eat or drink."
People who are found to need treatment are now being forced into quarantine.
China Daily via REUTERS
China's Vice Premier Sun Chunlan visited Wuhan on Thursday , where she said that anyone who needed treatment should, if needed, be rounded up and forced into a quarantine, describing the country as being under "wartime conditions."
And as many as 50,000 pets have also been trapped, as their owners are quarantined or unable to return to the city. People are breaking into homes to save animals trapped in homes at the request of their owners, but volunteers are overwhelmed.
STR/AFP/Getty Images
Source: Reuters
China is now is ordering the city's 11 million residents to report their body temperatures every day.
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People find themselves facing screenings as they go about their daily lives.
AP Photo/Arek Rata
These is not yet any definitive cure for the virus, but people in Wuhan are trying to get their hands on HIV medication after it was suggested as a potential cure.
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Medics around the world are holding clinical trials to test if HIV medication could work as a treatment.
The streets and the inside of buildings are sprayed with disinfectant to try and stop the virus from spreading.
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China is using trucks to spray citie s , including Wuhan.
Some people are also being kept isolated in hotels, where food is delivered to them.
Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
People are disinfected before entering the hotels.
Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Many international brands have closed their stores in Wuhan, and some have also done so in other parts of China.
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Source: Reuters
The city has turned public spaces like sports centers and exhibition halls into makeshift hospitals.
Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
The venues have thousands of beds, where they scan observe people who have mild symptoms and give emergency aid to people .
While other people are being brought for treatment in newly built hospitals that were constructed in just days.
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Some people are getting medical treatment outside or in their cars because they are scared of the number of sick people in hospitals.
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A photo tweeted by New York Times journalist Amy Qin shows patients sitting on the pavement outside a Wuhan hospital, getting IV drips outside or in their cars.
They reportedly said they didn't want to go inside the hospital because there were "too many sick people."
Medical workers are regularly disinfected.
STR/AFP via Getty Images
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