Blog: East Asia

With everything going on with the Coronavirus my min immediately went to China for this assignment. This is where the outbreak first happened, and with the time that has passed I was looking for an article to see how the country is doing now. Therefore I found an article on the New York Times entitled, "China Ends Wuhan Lockdown, but Normal Life Is a Distant Dream"

^This is the link to my article. However, I am not sure why it is showing a picture instead of just the plain link like it has before.

This article demonstrates how life in China is slowing going back to normal after the pandemic. On Wednesday the country ended is lockdown of Wuhan after more than 10 weeks. This was the city where the outbreak first occurred. This decision was made after only three new cases were reported in the city in the previous three weeks, including no new deaths as well. The people from the city can no leave after presenting to the authorities a government-sanctioned phone app. This exemplifies whether or not they are a contagion risk based on personal information. In addition across Wuhan, almost 94% of businesses have resumed operation and cautiously calling their employees back to work. Smaller and local businesses are also starting to reopen so that the people can buy fresh vegetables or alcohol for example.

When thinking about East Asia many of us, of course, think of China since it is East Asia's dominant country. In addition, it also contains 85% of the realm's population. This is why the outbreak of the virus was so huge there, simply because of its political geography. The virus also spread so quickly from this country to Europe because of the global connections it has. For example, thousands of flights leave China, going to Europe and places like New York City and the West Coast of the United States. Large cities in China have a very dense population. Wuhan is a city of 11.08 million people which is an average size for a Chinese city. When comparing this city to NYC, United States largest city, NYC is 3/4 of the size. Overall it is very simple for a highly contagious virus to spread from a Global superpower like China because it is so connected with the rest of the world in so many different aspects.