CHINA UNDER COVID-19

by Roman Pilipey

As the nation where the pandemic originated, China was the first country in the world that had to deal with the early stages of the virus, and provide lessons to the rest of us on what was to come. Chinese citizens were the first to be locked at home as nationwide shutdowns came into effect, lasting over two months, in some places three. They were the first to build hospitals and expand ICUs to deal with the massive caseloads in major hotspots like the epicenter Wuhan. And they were the first to emerge from quarantine into a new, post-Covid world, demonstrating how staying at home, social distancing and surveillance would become integral parts of our new normality.