Going back to her hometown, 28-year-old Tan Jie has been ribbed at work about the danger of contracting the new coronavirus, but the blue surgical mask on her face shows she is taking the risk seriously. “My Beijing colleagues joked and said ‘when you come back to work, we’ll have to quarantine you for two weeks,’” Tan said, trying to make light of the dampener the scare has put on the most important holiday for Chinese families.
So far three people have died, and authorities globally have counted more than 200 reported cases. On Monday, China confirmed the first cases in the country outside Wuhan, in Beijing and the southern city of Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong.
