China is on a knife edge between recovery and another wave of coronavirus cases

In the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where cases of the novel coronavirus were first detected late last year, the mood was one of triumph this week, as residents finally emerged from months of lockdown. This was reflected in state media, as the city which once characterized China's failures to contain the coronavirus now symbolized the country's recovery, in stark contrast to the chaos that is rapidly unfolding in much of the rest of the world.

"Like a phoenix, Wuhan reemerges from dark coronavirus lockdown in warm spring," read a headline in the state-backed Global Times, while other outlets ran stories about the city "gradually getting back to normal," including a boom in weddings. But under that confident facade, there were signs of a concern felt across Asia: that any recovery from the virus may be fleeting, and a new wave of infections -- and the lockdowns, death and misery that follow in their wake -- may be just over the horizon.

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