"Life seems to have come to a halt..."

"... yet time continues to slip by".

Words by the anonymous diary writer, who had traveled home to Wuhan to celebrate New Year and now writes under the tag #wuhandiary on Twitter.

"I have cried twice since the Wuhan epidemic began. The first time was two days before Wuhan was closed. That was when I heard that one of the eight doctors punished for "spreading rumors" had already been infected and was in an intensive care unit because "his lungs are all white". I didn't know that physician's name then. I didn't even know if (I) were the only one crying. I cried again yesterday evening because he has left us (...) when I cry for him, I cry for myself as well".

Badiucao, February 6, 2020, #wuhandiary.

Badiucao, January 29, 2020, #wuhandiary.

Dr. Li's masked face from the hospital bed reached the world, but the Chinese exile artist Badiucao lets him confront us standing like the whole person he was a moment before. At once a professional and fellow human insisting on speaking up, making him a hero because his moral courage was greater than the consequences he experienced from the authorities until he himself was hospitalized.

The portrait fronted the diary entry of February 6. Badiucao organizes the spreading of the diary in Chinese and English, as well as drawing a front page for each of the diary entries on life with a city lockdown due to COVID-19, the now official name of the coronavirus.

Badiucao, February 5, 2020, #wuhandiary.

The diary pages tell us of a new kind of daily life routine, which belong to a nightmare in any other situation. Cutting masks in half after use is but one. Rumors and never knowing, rumors of abuse of power, the distribution of food - or not, news from friends, whose families are afflicted and everywhere anxiety and death. 

The front pages chronicles the population isolated in their nightmarish world where the sick stand in line for the unattainable hospital bed. The sick mother begging her child to stay on the other side of the room so as not to be infected by her, while she collapses of exhaustion, having calculated the costs of any food she might be able to find, just as the masks to avoid the infection they may already have inside their home. The rumor of the family father who was infected but was told to go home and instead jumped from of a bridge to keep his family safe. Suicides which may not have occurred, but tells of dilemmas that are only too likely.

Badiucao, February 2, 2020, #wuhandiary.

Badiucao, February 9, 2020.

Badiucao creates each front page with layers upon layers of shadows. It is far from the wood cutting clarity by which we usually know his style. This is a world that the daylight does not reach, eating away at the soul. Dr. Li called for transparency and openness. Here only corruption and denial have existence. The living nightmare is all the worse because the very worst of those afflicted and their families belongs another layer of total darkness from which nothing is known and so the mind of the reader/beholder must be kicked in to keep questioning and insisting on knowing more. 

At the same time Badiucao does away with false information, such as the rumors of where the infection first occurred. Groundless fear has no right and shall be reported to Twitter for instance. You are so naive! - is Badiucao's constant and hard-hitting definition of the West. 

Stay vigilant. It was announced that as of February 9 the proportion of people checked for the virus in Wuhan are 99%. It sparked the reaction on WeChat "I am in the One Percent". Failure to organization, failure to feedback and human rights defender Chen Qiushi has been missing since February 6 while reporting on the virus. Know him on his face. Know them on their actions. Let it all be seen. 

Badiucao, February 11, 2020, #wuhandiary.

Badiucao first began distritubuting the diary in Chinese and English on January 27 and can be found at Twitter: @badiucao while the diary can be followed at #wuhandiary.