Wuhan bustling with life a year on from first Covid diagnosis as rest of the world is crippled by lockdowns

STARTLING new images show Wuhan - the former Covid ground zero - bursting with life after apparently wiping out the disease.

The first human case of the coronavirus was detected in the Chinese city in late-2019 before it quickly spread around the world killing 1.5 million people.

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But with many western countries enforcing strict lockdowns as the virus sweeps through their elderly and vulnerable - China, it seems, has returned to normality, even without a vaccine.

The new pictures show masked people crammed together at a job fair in Wuhan - not having to adhere to social distancing rules.

Other images show shoppers at a food market - buying fresh produce including fish, eggs and vegetables.

This comes after photographs emerged in September showing a packed nightclub in the city - a month after music fans were shown at a giant pool party.

Covid-19 is believed to have first jumped from animals to humans at a wet market in Wuhan last winter.

Yet, despite the pandemic starting in China, the country's economy has actually GROWN this year.

The authoritarian Communist Party was able to lockdown Hubei province - of which Wuhan is the capital - and stem the flow of the virus.

However, it's believed that the true nature of the country's outbreak has been downplayed by the one-party state.

Officially, China has had 86,551 infections and only 4,634 deaths despite having a population of 1.3bn, the world's largest.

Yet, last week leaked documents show the regime LIED to the world about its true infection rate to "protect" its image.

One example is that on February 10 the country reported just 2,478 infections when in reality Hubei province recorded 5,918 new cases on that day alone.

The data was leaked by a whistleblower from the Hubei provincial centre for disease control and prevention, CNN reports.

One year on, China is officially experiencing a very low outbreak compared to other large countries.

On November 29, it reported 18 new cases up from 11 a day earlier, the national health authority said.

Officials from the National Health Commission said 15 of the new infections were imported from outside China.

Wuhan itself, returned to something resembling normality months ago.

In August, images emerged showing swimmers in the city crammed together for a massive pool party.

Hundreds of people were pictured packed shoulder-to-shoulder at a music festival at the Wuhan Maya Beach Water Park.