Exhibition shows Wuhan's battle with COVID-19

A once makeshift hospital in the Chinese city of Wuhan has been turned into a huge museum.

On display is the city's battle, and ultimate triumph, over the coronavirus pandemic.

The Parlor Convention Centre is now a centrepiece of China's propaganda push to control the narrative about the virus.

The exhibition includes mannequins wearing PPE, photographs of doctors and nurses, and signed medical overalls.

There's a whole wall devoted to those who lost their lives on the frontline, including Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor who issued an early warning about the outbreak and was reprimanded by authorities.

Plenty of space is also dedicated to quotes, photos and videos of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who visited toward the end of the city's lockdown.

Museum goers said they were proud of the Wuhan's resilience and cohesiveness:

"It is very powerful to see that so many people from all across our country came to support Wuhan. This sort of unity, especially when I was studying abroad, it's hard to see this kind of cohesiveness exist in other countries. This is something very different."

"I think the people of Wuhan have been through a lot and they really are amazing. They sacrificed their freedoms during Wuhan's lockdown. They contributed a lot to China's fight against the pandemic.

Wuhan is believed to be where the pandemic began.

In December 2019, the first cases of COVID-19 were detected there, and a month later the city of 11 million people was locked down in an effort to stem the spread of the disease.

A team of scientists from the World Health Organisation arrived in Wuhan last week to start their much anticipated and delayed investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

Life has largely gone back to normal in the city, but in China's northeast, it's a different story.

Tens of millions of people have been put under a new lockdown as the region battles its worst wave of new infections since March 2020.

Worldwide, more than 2 million people have now died from the disease.