French doctor Philippe Klein has worked in central China's Wuhan for seven years, but it's the first time he is celebrating the Spring Festival in the city.

Raising his glass for a toast during a New Year's reunion dinner, he extended his best wishes to his family, Italian professor Sara Platto and her son Matteo, Israeli blogger and entrepreneur Raz Galor, and other friends.

For Klein, over the years, he didn't develop an emotional connection with the locals, but now everything has changed. "Maybe because of the pandemic, now I have more and more solidarity with Wuhan people," he said.

When Wuhan went into lockdown in January last year, the 57-year-old Frenchman refused to evacuate from the city despite all the uncertainty, the fear and the pain from being separated from his family who flew back to France.

"I am a doctor. It's my duty to help people here," he said. 

At the peak of the outbreak, Klein received a permit which enabled him to move freely in the city to treat patients in their homes.

"It was unforgettable. I remember driving alone with nobody else on the roads but the ambulances," he recalled.

His Chinese friend Zhong Weiwei, a construction worker, didn't return home for his family reunion last year, either. At the time, he joined the workforce to build Leishenshan Hospital, a makeshift structure designed to house COVID-19 patients.

"Last New Year's Eve, all I did was slurping a bowl of instant noodles and hurrying back to work," Zhong said, adding that for weeks he slept for no more than three hours a night. "The feeling that our country was in danger and the mutual goal and determination everyone had to build the hospital fueled and encouraged me," he said.

Zhong was among more than 40,000 construction workers who completed the job of building two hospitals in two weeks to provide 2,600 beds for severe and critical COVID-19 patients.

"Zhong is the real hero of this adventure," said Klein. "It was really important to bring such a hospital in this pandemic, and they did it very quickly. I think the rest of the world will never forget this," the doctor said.

Galor went back to Israel during last year's Chinese New Year, but instead of taking parties and having hotpot with his friends, he immediately began to raise medical supplies in his motherland and sent them to hospitals in Hubei.

Besides, when he noticed anti-Chinese and anti-Wuhan contents online, he began to make videos to fight against them with facts.

The Beijing-based Israeli said that at that point, he felt he must produce content "to make audiences more aware of the scientific situation rather than a cultural situation where people are blaming others and being discriminatory."

"We need more positivity and less hate and blaming," he said.

In sharp contrast to the Spring Festival last year, the homes of Wuhan residents this year are once again filled with the shuffling noises of mahjong tiles, laughs and the fragrance of home-cooked dishes and local delicacies.

Every street is decorated with red banners and lanterns. Festive vibes spread throughout supermarkets with joyous songs playing, discounted goods on display and plenty of colorful decorations dangling from the ceilings.

In the days leading up to the Spring Festival, Zhong and Klein drove to the supermarket to pick up a bottle of wine. Platto and her son Matteo strolled along Hanjie Street to buy some new clothes for the new year.

Platto teaches at Jianghan University in Wuhan. She said last year's Spring Festival was one she will never forget. "When the lockdown in Wuhan began on January 23, it was Matteo's birthday," she said.

The mother planned to hold an in-person birthday party at home, but due to the outbreak, she quickly changed the plan, moving the birthday celebration online.

During the months-long lockdown, Platto relied heavily on deliverymen for her daily necessities and groceries. "While we stayed safe at home, deliverymen were risking their lives every day to deliver food and provisions to hospitals and the rest of the city. They are the heroes of this pandemic," she said.

This year, though the epidemic has been contained across China, Chinese have been encouraged to stay where they are during the Spring Festival to reduce the risk of catching a second wave of coronavirus during mass migration.

Data from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport showed that the number of passenger trips in and out of the airport has dropped by more than 60 percent compared with the same period in 2019.

"I think Chinese people's ability to sacrifice their own good for others is quite obvious, not just in Wuhan, and even now people sacrifice themselves by not going home, which is something that they want so much," Galor said.

Through the epidemic, both Klein and Platto developed a deeper connection to Wuhan and they now call the city their second home.

"My relationship with the city is like a friendship. During the pandemic, the lockdown, I decided to stay here. Therefore, my friend [Wuhan] became family, and that is what I feel about Wuhan now. It's like family," said Platto.

In July 2020, the professor published a book titled "Buongiorno, Wuhan"(Italian "Buongiorno" means "Good day" in English) to share her son's experience during the epidemic as a way to introduce the city to her readers. 

"I really would like people outside of China to really see what Wuhan is, not relating Wuhan to the virus, but to appreciate the city for what it really is," Platto said.

Klein echoed Platto's sentiments, saying "I hope that human beings won't remember Wuhan as the city of the virus, but the city who fought the virus and won against the virus with solidarity, courage and intelligence.

(The story is edited based on a Xinhua News report.)