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China’s mass coronavirus quarantine was impossible to get right

China’s mass coronavirus quarantine was impossible to get right

On Friday (Jan. 24), the Chinese government took the dramatic step to expand its travel ban to prevent the spread of a novel coronavirus that likely originated in a live animal market in the city of Wuhan. The quarantine now encompasses 12 cities, impacting 35 million residents, thought to be the largest-ever intervention of its kind. “Three weeks ago they should have started screening people coming in and out of Wuhan,” says Nischay Mishra, a virologist a the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.