Bit by bit, the traces of Shanghai’s coronavirus lockdown in 2022 have disappeared from around Fu Aiying’s stir-fry restaurant. The smell of rotten eggs, from when officials carted her off to quarantine without letting her refrigerate her groceries, is long gone. The testing booths manned by workers in hazmat suits have been dismantled.

在上海，2022年因为新冠疫情封城的痕迹已经一点一点地从付爱英（音）的炒菜馆周围消失了。臭鸡蛋的味道早就没有了，当时她被强行带走送去隔离，甚至来不及把食物冷藏储存。身穿防护服的工作人员值守的检测亭也已经拆除。

Even her neighbors have moved away, from the century-old neighborhood that had one of the city’s highest infection rates. Soon, the neighborhood itself will vanish: Officials have slated it for demolition, saying that its cramped houses had helped the virus spread. Ms. Fu’s restaurant is one of the few businesses still open, in a row of darkened storefronts and caution signs taped to doorways.

就连她的邻居们也都搬走了，这是一个有上百年历史的街区，当时是上海感染最严重的地方。很快，就连这个社区也将不复存在：官方已经将这里列入了拆迁计划，称这里狭窄拥挤的房屋曾经助长病毒的传播。在一排门口贴着警示标志、昏暗的门脸中间，付爱英的餐馆是仍开门营业的几个商家之一。

But the boarded-up windows have done little to contain the emotional legacy of that time, a grueling, monthslong lockdown of 26 million people. Some residents, who had prided themselves on living in China’s wealthiest city, found themselves unable to buy food or medicine. They wondered when they might be dragged off to quarantine, forcibly separated from their children.

然而，那些用木板封住的窗户难掩那段时期给人们留下的情感创伤。当时，长达数月的封城让2600万人饱受磨难。一些曾为自己生活在中国最富裕的城市而自豪的居民发现自己竟然买不到食物和药品。他们不知道自己什么时候会被拉去隔离，被迫与尚未成年的子女分离。

梦花街是上海有着百年历史的老街区。官方已经将这里列入了拆迁计划，称这里狭窄拥挤的房屋当时助长了病毒的传播。

Ms. Fu spent 39 days in a mass quarantine center, with no idea of when she’d be allowed out. After she was finally released into the still-locked-down city, she had to sneak into her restaurant for rice and oil, because she didn’t have enough food at home.

付爱英在一处大型隔离中心关了39天，完全不知道自己何时能出去。当她最终离开隔离点、回到仍处于封锁状态的城市后，由于家里食物不够，她不得不偷偷溜进自己的餐馆去拿米和油。

She felt like a part of her had been permanently dulled. “Since my time in quarantine, I don’t have a temper anymore. I don’t have a personality anymore,” said Ms. Fu, 58, tearing up.

她觉得自己的一部分已经永远地变麻木了。“从我这个方舱我都没脾气了，也没性格了，”58岁的付爱英噙着眼泪说。

Perhaps no country was as deeply reshaped by the pandemic as China, where the outbreak began in the central city of Wuhan five years ago. For three years afterward, longer than anywhere else, the Chinese government sealed the country’s borders. In the final year, 2022, it declared an especially harsh “zero-tolerance” policy for infections, imposing lockdowns like the one in Shanghai, nationwide. Officials insisted on the restrictions even as the rest of the world decided to reopen and live with the virus.

也许没有哪个国家像中国一样被这次疫情深刻地改变，五年前，疫情在中部城市武汉暴发。此后三年里，中国政府封锁国境的时间比其他任何地方都长。在最后一年，也就是2022年，中国政府宣布采取极为严厉的“清零”政策，在全国范围内实施类似上海的封锁措施。即使世界其他国家决定重新开放、与病毒共存后，中国官员仍坚持实施这些限制。

Years later, the shadow of that experience still lingers. In another Shanghai neighborhood, which held the dubious distinction of being locked down the longest — 91 days — one woman said shortages during that time had once forced her to pay $11 for a head of cabbage. She now stockpiles at least a week’s worth of groceries.

几年时间过去了，那段经历留下的阴影依旧挥之不去。在上海另一个有着被封锁时间最长（长达91天）这一“殊荣”的社区，一位女士说，当时物资匮乏，她不得不花80元买一颗卷心菜。现在，她总要囤积至少够吃一周的食品杂货。

Another woman, Yan Beibei, a college counselor in her 30s, once planned to buy a house in Shanghai’s more affordable outskirts. But during the lockdown, her neighbors helped ensure that she had food. Now, she wants to stay near people she trusts, even if that means delaying homeownership.

30多岁的大学辅导员严蓓蓓（音）曾计划在上海郊区买房，因为那里的房价会更便宜一点。但是在封城期间，邻居帮她搞到了食物。现在，她想住在自己信任的人附近，即使这意味买房的计划要延后。

“You have to figure out which places feel safer,” she said.

她说：“你还是会发现哪个地方更安全。”

疫情期间，政府在全国都扩大了监控范围，以追踪居民的动向。

Before the pandemic, the ruling Communist Party’s controls could feel distant to many Chinese, or a worthwhile trade-off for the country’s huge economic gains. But the lockdowns made clear that the party was willing to sacrifice those gains, and people’s safety more broadly, at the whims of one man, Xi Jinping.

在疫情发生之前，许多中国人可能会觉得共产党的控制措施跟自己没有什么关系，或者认为那是为了换取国家巨大的经济成果而值得付出的代价。但疫情期间的封锁举动清楚地表明，共产党愿意牺牲这些成果，牺牲更广泛意义上的人民安全，只因为习近平的独断专行。

Local governments spent tens of billions of dollars on testing, vaccination, payments to health care workers and other related costs in 2022 alone, according to incomplete budget reports. Still struggling to recover financially, some localities have delayed payments to civil servants or cut benefits to retirees. Hospitals have gone bankrupt.

根据不完整的预算报告，仅在2022年，地方政府在核酸检测、疫苗接种、医护人员的酬劳以及其他相关费用上的开支就高达数千亿元。一些地区的财政状况至今仍未恢复，一些地区延迟支付公务员的薪酬或削减退休人员的福利。有的医院破产倒闭。

Ordinary people are hesitant to spend money, too. Many saw their savings dwindle as the lockdowns forced companies and factories to shut down. Empty storefronts are a common sight even in major city centers. Ms. Fu, the restaurant owner, said business was half what it had been before the pandemic.

普通民众也对消费持谨慎态度。由于封锁措施迫使企业和工厂停工，许多人坐吃山空，积蓄不断减少。即使在大城市的市中心，空荡荡的店面也随处可见。付爱英说，她现在的生意只有疫情前的一半。

Still, Ms. Fu did not want to dwell on her memories. “Even thinking about it is painful,” she said. “Let’s not talk about it.”

尽管如此，付爱英并不想总回忆起那段日子。“想想都真难受。别提了，”她说。

2022年街头爆发抗议期间，警方在上海乌鲁木齐路等地区部署了大量警力。

The silence may be a coping mechanism for some residents. But it is also carefully enforced by the Chinese government. The restrictions at times set off intense public anger, including the biggest protests in decades.

沉默可能是某些民众的应对之道。但这也是中国政府严加执行的结果。这些限制措施有时会引发公众的强烈愤怒，包括几十年来最大规模的抗议活动。

The government has worked to squelch any discussion about its response to the pandemic, let alone attempts to reckon with it. Art exhibits about the lockdowns have been shut down. Even today, many social media users use code words like “face mask era” to avoid censorship.

中国政府一直努力压制任何有关防疫措施的讨论，更不用说对这些举措进行反思了。有关疫情封锁的艺术展览已被关停。即便在今天，许多社交媒体用户仍会用诸如“口罩时期”之类的代号来规避审查。

The government has also not pulled back much of the expanded surveillance it introduced then. It has urged cities to hire more neighborhood workers who were in charge of tracking residents’ movements during the pandemic, to strengthen monitoring of public sentiment.

而且，中国政府也未取消当时所推行的大部分扩大化的监控措施。当时它要求各地方雇佣更多在疫情期间负责追踪居民行动轨迹的社区工作人员，以加强对公众情绪的监测。

On Shanghai’s Urumqi Road, where some of the biggest protests occurred, in 2022, a police truck is still parked at a busy intersection of hip boutiques and restaurants. Some workers at businesses there declined to discuss the pandemic, citing the political sensitivity.

在上海的乌鲁木齐路——2022年，这里曾发生了一些规模最大的抗议活动，一辆警车仍然停在一个繁忙的路口，附近是时髦的精品店和餐馆。这些商家的一些工作人员以话题敏感为由不愿讨论疫情。

曾发生过抗议活动的乌鲁木齐路一带至今仍有警车在密切监视。这些抗议活动由对疫情限制措施的愤怒引发，是中国几十年来最大规模的抗议活动。

But silence is not the same thing as forgetting. Many Chinese were shaken by the seeming arbitrariness of the restrictions, as well as the abruptness of the government’s decision, in December 2022, to end them. The government had not stockpiled medicine or warned medical professionals before doing so, and hospitals were overwhelmed as infections skyrocketed.

但沉默不等于遗忘。许多中国人对这些限制措施看起来颇为随意的实施方式以及政府在2022年12月突然放开的决定深感震惊。政府在放开之前没有做好药品储备工作，也没有提前告知医护人员，随着感染人数激增，医院不堪重负。

The mother of Carol Ding, a 57-year-old accountant, fell sick in that wave. Ms. Ding managed to secure her mother a much-sought-after hospital bed — other patients slept in the hallways or were turned away, Ms. Ding recalled — but the hospital didn’t have enough medicine. Her mother died.

57岁的财务人员卡罗尔·丁（音）的母亲在那波疫情中感染了。她想方设法给母亲在医院弄到了一张病床——许多患者不是睡在走廊上就是被拒绝收治，但那家医院也没有足够的药品。她的母亲后来去世了。

“If you had so much power to lock people down, you should have the power to prepare medicine,” Ms. Ding said.

“你有这点力气去封控，那你就应该有这点力气去（准备）药物，”丁女士说。

She added that time had done little to ease her emotional pain. “I think it’ll take at least 10 years for all this to go away or be diluted,” she said.

她还说，时间并没有减轻她内心的痛苦。“我觉得起码要10年再能算能够就是消除，就是淡化这些东西，”她说。

上海的一家医院，摄于2023年1月。2022年12月中国突然解除疫情防控措施后，新冠病毒迅速传播，许多医院都像这样样因患者激增不堪重负。

To the casual observer, these pandemic aftershocks may not be immediately evident. Tourists once again stroll Shanghai’s glittering Bund waterfront. Hipster coffee shops and soup dumpling joints are again drawing long lines of customers.

对于漫不经心的旁观者来说，疫情带来的余波可能不会立刻显现出来。在上海光彩夺目的外滩，游客又纷至沓来。时髦的咖啡馆和卖小笼包的馆子又出现了排队的人群。

The apparent bustle, though, masks a struggling economy. With well-paying jobs hard to find, more and more people have turned to gig work. But their earnings have fallen as their ranks have grown. And they’re scrambling for fewer and fewer dollars, as people cut down on spending.

然而，热闹的表象之下是经济的困境。由于薪水好的工作很难找，越来越多的人转向零工经济。但随着相关从业者增加，他们的收入已经在下降了。而且，随着人们谨慎开支，大家为了越来越少的收入而拼命竞争。

Lu Yongjie, who runs a parcel delivery station in a working-class neighborhood of Shanghai, said shipping companies once paid him 20 cents per package. That has now fallen to about 14 cents, he said.

在上海一个工薪阶层社区，陆永杰（音）经营着一个快递点。他说，快递公司以前每个包裹给他一块五，现在只有一块钱了。

Still, he had to accept the lower prices: “If you don’t do it, someone else will.”

不过，他只能接受较低的价格：“你不做他们也能做。”

If there is a cure for China’s post-Covid hangover, it may lie with what propelled the country’s prepandemic rise: the doggedness and ambition of ordinary people, like Marco Ma, a 40-year-old restaurant owner.

如果说有什么东西能够治愈中国的新冠后遗症，那可能正是曾经推动这个国家在疫情之前崛起的东西：普通人身上的坚韧和抱负，40岁的餐馆老板马可·马（音）就是这样的人之一。

上海的一个购物中心外，当年的核酸检测亭改造成了卖彩票的地方。

Since the pandemic, Mr. Ma had shut down four of the six locations of his Korean street food restaurant. His fourth-grade son, once a star pupil, now struggled with paying attention, which Mr. Ma attributed to extended online schooling. He kept expecting the next year to be better, but, in reality, business only got worse.

他本来经营着六家韩式街头小吃店，疫情以来已经关闭了四家。他上四年级的儿子本来是班上的尖子生，现在却难以集中注意力，马先生认为，这是因为长时间上网课导致的。他一直期待着新的一年会更好，但实际上，生意却每况愈下。

Still, “I think 2025 will be a turning point,” he said. “You grab onto whatever pieces of news, or whatever to cheer yourself up. What can you do? You have to keep living.”

即便如此，“希望25年然后给我一个契机，什么一会儿一个新闻，或者一个一会儿一个什么，给自己打气，没办法，你必须要活着，”他说。