If you had seen our travel itinerary for the spring of 2020, you would have had an early warning about where the coronavirus (aka “Covid 19”) was headed after its initial outbreak in China.
South Korea, the location of our connecting flight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia in March as well as our return from Hanoi, Vietnam in April, was an early hotspot for the coronavirus.
Italy, our intended destination in May, became the first country in Europe to quarantine communities after a high number of people tested positive for the virus.
Delta Airlines and a host of hotels have been accommodating in rescheduling our reservations, but I can tell that the owner of the apartment we are renting in Florence is frustrated with the disruption in her income as travelers cancel their plans. “It’s absurd,” she says.
These are minor inconveniences compared to those experienced by our son who is an educator living in Beijing, and whose existence since late January has been confined to his small high-rise apartment. He’s ventured out a few times for groceries, when he has his temperature taken before entering the shop and again before re-entering his apartment building, no matter how brief his time away. Otherwise, his connection to the outside world has been entirely through the internet. And more frequently than in normal times, his contact has been with us, which is a pleasant by-product of this global health crisis.
Our son reports that China is engaged in the world’s largest experiment ever in online teaching and learning. Millions of students from primary grades through post-graduate studies are engaged.
China’s culture — in which large numbers of people gather at markets where live animals are sold and slaughtered and then consumed as remedies for humans’ physical, mental and spiritual maladies — made China especially susceptible to this outbreak. But another aspect of that culture — the unlimited authority of the central government to dictate the behavior of its subjects — may have allowed China to arrest the spread of the virus faster than such may be accomplished in more open and democratic societies.
Those who used this crisis to take condescending and even racist shots at the Chinese people in early February may be marveling at the effectiveness of China’s response by late March. This does not excuse China’s ongoing, unchecked damage to its natural environment and disregard for human rights; it’s merely giving credit where credit might be due.
JER
ALL OVER THE MAP 