 "Indians, airlifted from Wuhan, undergo tests at a quarantine facility in New Delhi Photo: PTI")
New Year celebrations were gathering steam in China’s capital city Beijing on a lazy January 1 afternoon. Shanky Chandra, a Dehradun lad pursuing his research in Chinese science fiction at the Beijing Normal University, was going about his day till he received an alarming text from his Taiwanese friend: “Atypical pneumonia swarms occur in Wuhan, Hubei Province...The news has caused public concern that the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has revived.”
Surely, it was a rumour, Chandra thought. He tried to verify the information from some of the professors who, as it turned out, had also heard the rumours and
