From TPM Reader PL …
I lived in Beijing for 5 years and had just left a job working for a Chinese company involved in international trade’s New York office. I saw all my friends in China reacting and realized that it was a big deal, and my wider social network of people who were from or had lived in China were all paying attention to it starting in January. I’d been in Beijing during the swine flu outbreak and knew the Chinese government didn’t fuck around with outbreaks. But when they locked down Wuhan and surrounding areas during Spring Festival, by far the largest travel holiday in the world, I knew it was going to be enormous. It’s not just that it’s an enormous metro-region, but it’s a huge rail transit hub and hundreds of millions of people travel by rail during the holiday. Imagine shutting Chicago O’hare Airport down during Thanksgiving times a thousand.