BeijingThe sweating and shivering arrived with Lunar New Year.

Wang Zhen was watching festive programs on television with his wife, two kids, and his parents on the outskirts of Wuhan when he became short of breath. Evening was settling over the village, while a knot in the center of his chest was tightening. He couldn’t sit up.

“The first thing that came to my mind was I must not pass the bug to my family—if it was not too late,” Wang, a 33-year-old philosophy lecturer at Hubei University, recounts.

He packed a small bag and drove by himself through a cold drizzle to his flat in the city. Major roads were blocked off, but as a Wuhan native, he knew his way around