I was one of the luckier ones: After a lunar new year holiday to Rome and Naples, I returned to Beijing on February 1st. Friends who delayed traveling back from overseas are facing escalating hurdles in their return. Those who went to Japan or the US to escape COVID are confronting both the virus and difficulties in traveling back, especially since they would have to self-quarantine once they return. I’m glad to be here, because these six weeks of the virus outbreak have been a fascinating time to observe China. Here are a few notes.

I live in Beijing’s Sanlitun neighborhood, where the city’s most lively shopping area (a large outdoor mall) abuts the majority of the country’s foreign embassies (situated in quiet, leafy compounds). Taikooli, the pedestrian-only shopping district, is easily the most trafficked area in the city. Few people have been walking around for the last month. I estimate that around a quarter of its stores and restaurants are still closed. And it’s less lively in the rest of the city. While every supermarket is open and well-stocked, I estimate that a third of the city’s retail businesses are shut and less than half of all restaurants are operating.

Businesses are starting to open their doors again, but still at a rate of a trickle. Most people are staying home—I know of people who have not left their apartments in the last six weeks. In normal times, I grab lunch with someone every day. Now it’s difficult to coax any Chinese friend to venture outdoors, so mostly I have to eat with foreign friends. When we’re out as a group, it’s difficult to go to bars and restaurants that would seat more than three or four people together. The cinemas, museums, and most attractions are closed. In the aggregate though, I find myself being more social than before. Since everyone is working from home, we’re all more eager to congregate in the evenings. Nearly every night someone is organizing small-group gatherings for dinner, drinks, board games, or a movie watched at home.

Last year I spent over half my time on the road. (I can be precise, because for tax reasons I had to calculate how many days I spent in China, which was fewer than 180.) So I looked forward to spending an extended stretch of time in Beijing. On the one hand, it’s been wonderful to get to know the city better. On the other, a lot of what makes life fun in Beijing has been shut down. My gym is closed, and my personal trainer is still stuck in Heilongjiang, unable to return to the capital after six weeks away. The badminton courts are shut, and the performances at the Egg are canceled. Most of my favorite restaurants are still closed, and those that are open can only serve a fraction of their usual dishes. Whenever my mind drifts to these minor inconveniences, however, I immediately remind myself that I’m living in a state of privilege. An enormous share of the country is going through worse: those living in Wuhan, the migrant workers who are unable get back to work, to say nothing of the victims of the virus.

The silver lining is that Beijing has become pleasantly livable. The shutdown of a great deal of industry has brought many blue skies. The warming weather is a reminder that Beijing is a splendidly beautiful city in the spring and fall. The parks are excellent for birdwatching, and one can have very nice hikes along the Great Wall. I spent the last few weekends bicycling around the city. I’ve always been mortified to admit that I’ve never properly learned how to ride a bike. With the encouragement and in the company of kind and patient friends, I’ve cycled to the Olympic village and the Temple of Heaven. Beijing’s flat roads and wide lanes are great for cyclists.

It’s not the blue skies that make me keen to be in Beijing. Instead it’s the chance to observe the country during its biggest crisis in two decades. Before I returned from Rome, I had a call with my firm to discuss whether I should instead work out of San Francisco. And I’m happy to have chosen to be here. I’ve always believed in leading from the front, and I don’t want to be one of the China analysts who spend little time in the country. Too many people have cleared out, including (incredibly) the bureau of one major US newspaper, depriving its readers of on-the-ground coverage in a crisis. That’s the exception; most reporters I know are excited to be here, and in many cases they’re eager to go to Wuhan. Here are a few things that I see.

I see quarantine enforcement. One day in early February, a uniformed municipal employee set up a tent and a table outside my apartment compound, taking the temperatures of everyone leaving and entering. The next day, he gave me a paper slip, saying that I needed to display it every time I came in. It was a good thing that I received that entry card when I did, because I would have to go through a gauntlet of questions to be issued one today. These guards have been the chief enforcers of the quarantines, making sure that those who return from overseas or other provinces have to stay indoors. Given that everyone lives in big apartment compounds, it’s more or less possible to make sure that only approved people are allowed in or out of every residence. From where these enforcers emerged is a mystery. The source of their legal authority to regulate my entry is also unclear; sometimes the entrance is staffed by volunteers, whom I assume are retired Party members. 

I see movement regulations. In every business I enter (whether that’s a restaurant, supermarket, or retailer), someone takes my temperature and asks me to write down my phone number. Taikooli, the large outdoor mall by where I live, has blocked off most entrances to corral people into temperature check zones. Most of the enforcement is low tech: instead of digital tracking, it’s middle-aged men sitting outside apartments working with pen and paper. Digital surveillance exists too. My mobile carrier sent me a text to tell me that it can give me my 14-day location history based on my data usage. (I texted back, but received no response; it has worked for others.) Social distancing is encouraged everywhere: at restaurants, where one can’t always sit face-to-face with people; in elevators; and in the office, where no more than a third of people can visit at any time. To enter my office building, I need to fill in a government app with self-reported health data. 

I see dubious precautions. The evidence I’m familiar with states that gloves are good protection and that masks are barely so. Most people here wear masks religiously, but fail to wear gloves, and they don’t always wash hands before they eat. A few people wear it all: gloves, masks, and goggles. The masks are the costumes that make the security theater on display everywhere in the capital a real spectacle.

I see civic spirit. People are making donations to Wuhan, and medical professionals have volunteered to go into the city. Most people are saying that everyone should be trying to save Wuhan, not that the city has to be punished. But I also see awful prejudice. I haven’t personally witnessed people being nasty to Hubei natives, but there are enough reports out there of people native to the province being turned out of their apartments or losing their jobs because of stigma.

I see rousing propaganda. The top leadership has declared that that the outbreak is a “major test of China’s capacity for governance.” That requires citizens to rally together to drown the virus in a righteous people’s war. Big propaganda posters are everywhere, telling folks to wash hands, minimize going out, wear masks, and seek medical help if sick. People don’t have to do much to take this campaign seriously, because mobilization mostly means staying at home. That’s possible to do because the material world hasn’t much broken down: courier services are working relatively well (household items I’ve ordered on JD have been delivered the next morning), many restaurants are still delivering food, and there has been no panic buying in supermarkets. When I go to parks on sunny days, I see people having a good time. People are being nice and forbearing towards each other, instead of grim or mean.

And I’m seeing a city on the track to recovery. More cars are getting back on the road, and are maybe only 20% off from normal levels. More people are venturing outdoors in the warmer weather. And more businesses are opening their doors again. The number of new infections reported by the National Health Commission can’t be exactly right, but the trend of diminishing new infections is real. There’s nothing I can observe to suggest that the virus is in fact everywhere, secretly paralyzing every health facility. Instead, the heroic efforts of frontline medical professionals in Hubei, combined with extraordinary social distancing practiced by everyone, seem to be containing its spread. A single case undetected case might upset the system once more, but so far there’s reason to be optimistic.

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The most interesting question is how this outbreak changes China in 20 years. The more important question is how to make sure that the outbreak doesn’t wreck the world in the next two months. 

Most countries remained oddly complacent immediately after the outbreak. Early on, media publications were more eager to wheel out political scientists to diagnose the failings of authoritarian regimes than medical professionals to warn the public about the coming health crisis. Over February, when Hubei was going through the peak of its misery, few countries took much action beyond imposing travel restrictions. Implicitly, everyone (aside from a few corners of the tech and finance worlds) was betting that China would contain the virus. Commentators jumped on the outbreak to make broad political claims, while the virus’s basic features are still poorly understood, instead of treating it as a blooming health crisis. Markets, meanwhile, kept making new highs. The S&P 500 saw its first big fall only on February 24, when news over the weekend showed that Iran and South Korea were dealing with their own outbreaks. 

Hubei had an active flu season, and it was probably not obvious that the province was facing a major crisis until early January; after that point, the government squandered two vital weeks to act. Hubei authorities made serious mistakes. These included silencing medical doctors who spoke up about the disease; failing to be forthcoming with information and acting quickly on it; and hosting a giant potluck instead of canceling public events. The central government not only had to impose extreme containment actions afterwards, but also move politically. The sacking of the party secretaries in charge of Wuhan and Hubei were warnings to other provinces that they could not engage in cover-ups.

Given that we know now that the virus is highly contagious and that asymptomatic transmission is possible, I’m not sure if we can say with confidence that the outbreak could have been easily contained. Many governments have imitated Hubei’s early handling of the outbreak, i.e. doing too little. The US and Japan have similarly neglected to inform the public of the seriousness of the virus, driven in part by political considerations: the general election in one case, and the Olympics in the other. Neither of these two wealthy countries had enough testing kits on hand, nor were they prepared to contain the outbreak. South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore are better examples of success. 

When the crisis broke out in China, commentators presented it as an indictment of the political system in toto. I suspect that lured most countries into complacency instead of preparedness, as if outbreaks can take place only in censorious societies. The world should long have treated the highly-contagiousness virus as a health crisis that was going to hit them eventually. Most countries can’t enforce quarantines on the level of neighborhood communities as China can. But there are still some things that are sensible to do. 

I think it’s worth going through the WHO’s COVID report. Since late January, the organization has been telling anyone who cared to listen that the virus was going to spread and that countries should prepare. The WHO’s task force on COVID has taken a selective tour over only nine days, but its recommendations are nonetheless best. I’m not a medical professional, but the suggestions that stand out to me are to engage in contact tracing and quarantining of close contacts. Bruce Aylward, the lead doctor of the WHO’s task force, also offers useful color on specific actions that China did to mitigate the outbreak: making testing free, establishing fever checks, and adding large numbers of beds in ventilated areas. On a personal level, it’s universal advice to wash hands frequently, and I’d add that keeping to oneself more often is not a bad idea. Take the chance to learn some new skills, and read a few long books.