I know there is a lot of gloom and doom on the national and local news, but today I came across a story that might indicate that this could end earlier than the medical experts are predicting.
Other countries have bounced back in six weeks. Could it happen to us?
The grocery stores were brimming with shoppers and produce. Around the corner, a line was forming outside a stall selling pillowy white steamed buns.
The gray, brick-lined alleys of this old imperial capital, deserted several weeks ago, were congested again by newly licensed drivers struggling to park their outsize Audis.
I knew then: Beijing was slowly, unmistakably, returning to normal.
Six weeks earlier, I had watched China shut itself down as the coronavirus epidemic first exploded in Wuhan, and then spilled across the country and beyond. For my work, I traveled around China, down empty boulevards, through empty airports, in empty train cars. I saw China’s whole economic machinery, from the curbside noodle shops to sprawling tech campuses, clank to a halt as the government pulled out every stop to contain the virus’s spread.
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