A network of makeshift barriers has kept residents walled in their neighborhoods for weeks in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the heart of the coronavirus pandemic.

The city of 11 million, where the virus first erupted, became a ghost town after authorities prevented people from leaving on January 23.

With thousands of patients swarming hospitals every week, authorities tightened the restrictions in early February, confining people to their homes.

Closing off communities split the city into silos, with different neighborhoods rolling out controls of varying intensity and many of those sealed inside turning to online group-buying services to purchase food.