China has so far had the most success in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic largely because of its extraordinary isolation regime in Wuhan. The manner in which the lockdown was observed, where practically all people were provided food in disinfected containers at their doorsteps, was complete and there was literally no needless interaction among the people. That no doubt helped contain the spread of the virus as doctors went about treating the huge number of patients that had been infected. But since there’s still no vaccine for the coronavirus, there were fears about what could happen once the lockdown was eased. And now that the city has opened up after three months or so, and people mingle once again, everybody will be observing if there’s any chance of the virus spreading again. It must also be noted that just as Wuhan began returning to life, another city in the north, Heilonjiang, began restricting movement of citizens as people continue to bring the infection there from neighboring Russia. By now the Chinese know how to approach a city with increasing cases and they will be careful not to repeat some of the mistakes made in Wuhan. Hopefully this second outbreak will not be as severe as the first one so the Chinese economy, the world’s second-largest, can begin functioning normally once again. The success story of Wuhan proves, more than anything, the importance of enforcing strict lockdowns. In fact, countries that are struggling to keep new cases as well as deaths in check are failing precisely because they did not lock down in time. And, quite naturally, as more pressure builds the economy collapses that much faster too, causing yet more panic and shortage of essential goods. Countries like Pakistan can learn very important lessons from China’s experience. So far, thankfully, the virus has not hit this country as severely as even some of its neighbours. But, should things keep getting worse, everybody knows that the country’s healthcare system is nowhere nearly robust enough to handle the challenge Therefore, we must also take the current lockdown very seriously. Our economy is not even a fraction of the size of China’s, and it will be able to withstand closure of businesses for a very brief period of time. Should the virus spread too far and wide, there’s just no telling how much damage will be done, as the prime minister rightly warned just yesterday. Hopefully the success at Wuhan will lead others out of this problem as well. *