It was the worst way to start a year for China. On the New Year’s eve of 2020, Chinese social media were full of rumors about re-emergence of SARS virus from 2003. Chinese New Year was about to begin in three weeks, which would involve hundreds of millions of people traveling all over the country. Xi Jinping had already warned Chinese officials a month earlier that the US-China trade war and sanctions would make 2020 a very challenging year. Now an unknown virus was about to decimate the economy and shred the China dream into pieces.

From Terrified to Triumphant — How China Flipped 2020