Residents of Wuhan have found it extremely difficult to leave their apartments amid the city's lockdown. The inconvenience is felt even more keenly among foreigners.

Prof. Steve McClure, a scholar at Wuhan University, has lived in the city for nine years. McClure said he has never faced any situation like this before.

To contain the spread of the coronavirus, Wuhan shut down virtually all communities, while allowing only one member from each apartment to leave the house once every few days.

But this segregation, McClure said, hasn't necessarily isolated people.

"The thing about China is we're a thick network of inter-human relationships," said McClure. "You can look at the city, it just looks like a bunch of gray boxes made out of concrete, but what's really going on is the personal ties between people.”

McClure said he misses the fabric of life in Wuhan, as people are isolating themselves to protect each other from the virus. Many like McClure have had their daily lives disrupted.

"We're making an incredible sacrifice in Wuhan. The volunteers are risking themselves to maintain connections between the people in our community," said McClure.

Community volunteers have been working tirelessly to meet the needs of residents, and have been McClure's only source of human interaction during the month-long lockdown.

McClure made it a point to call and keep in touch with his wife living in another Chinese city and other family members in the U.S. every day, making special efforts to remain connected in highly unusual and extraordinary times.

(Zhang Youze and Meng Mingwei also contributed to the story.)