ABOVE: A banner on a street in Shanghai reminds residents who are returning to the city to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days.
© ISTOCK.COM, SCQBJ-JZ
On January 23, in the midst of the Spring Festival in China, which gives rise to the largest annual human migration, government officials in China shut down travel in and out of Wuhan—a major transportation hub and the center of the emerging COVID-19 outbreak—with only a few hours’ notice. Over the next few days, several surrounding cities were quarantined as well.
Scientists are among the many stranded in China due to the strict measures enacted there and elsewhere. One US-based physicist, who asked to remain anonymous, says he’d traveled to Wuhan to visit family for the Lunar New Year. As of mid-February, he was still there, unsure of when he’d be able to go home and continue his research.
Since the outbreak began in ...
