He added: "The city of skyscrapers, giant auto routes and a gorgeous hypermodern train station was silent. It was a ghost town. And behind every window of these skyscrapers we drove past, there were people. There were people staying put in one place for weeks at a time to stop this disease.

"And if we spoke with people we were working with in Wuhan, they said: 'This is our duty. We have to protect the world from this disease. This is our role. We are playing our role'."

Aylward said these "old-fashioned" measures, coupled with the meticulous tracking of close contacts of infected people and the mass quarantining of all those confirmed with and suspected to have the disease, potentially prevented hundreds of thousands of cases and changed the course of what was a rapidly escalating epidemic.

He said that when the outbreak ends, hopefully there will be a chance to thank the people of Wuhan for the role they have played.

Many people in Wuhan have taken to social media to post items about what they want to do when the outbreak ends. Activities include eating a bowl of the city's famed spicy noodles at a small restaurant hidden deep in an alleyway and talking loudly without wearing a face mask while having a drink with friends.

However, Gong, whose husband became infected, said: "There is nothing special I want to do when the lockdown is over. Living a normal life, such as being able to buy a cake that my son likes from the bakery, is already a luxury."

Ye also wrote in his diary: "Wuhan people will surely celebrate that day in their own ways because they will have won the battle against the novel coronavirus together despite all the difficulties. I will call it V-Day."

Wang Xiaoyu contributed to this story.