Beijing in the time of coronavirus

The beginning of it all

It is February 2020, and one of the first lockdowns around the world has just been imposed in one of the most populous cities of the world, Beijing. The municipal government had just said that people returning to the capital after traveling outside the city had to isolate themselves for 14 days, a sign that a return to normal life in the city of 23 million people remained elusive. A few days before, China’s National Health Commission added about 20,000 newly confirmed cases to its official count: more than 70,000 people were infected with the new coronavirus. The world was watching, and the virus was still largely unknown.