In a Country of 1.4 Billion People, No Individual Forgotten Katrina Michelle Yu | Al Jazeera English Correspondent – China
It was a frigid Monday morning and the streets of Beijing were completely empty. I had lived in China for eight years and never seen the capital like this. The number of people living in that one city is the same as the number in the whole of my home country of Australia. This is the centre of the most populous nation on earth and it’s never quiet. But the outbreak changed that. In February 2020 the coronavirus had taken hold across China and people were forcibly or voluntarily staying home, afraid of what they described as an “invisible enemy.” So little was known about this mysterious virus which had killed thousands in Wuhan. The world watched
in horror as China entered a seemingly dystopian lockdown. It would soon spread across every continent on earth and affect millions more. This was my first year as the Al Jazeera English China correspondent. Almost every hour we reported on a new update; higher numbers of infected people, more restrictions. Soon international borders would shut and strict quarantines be imposed. We skyped families in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, locked indoors for almost three months. Our own cameraman Peng Peng was unable to return to Beijing after leaving in February for what was
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