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  • AFP / Nicolas Asfouri
  • AFP / Noel Celis
  • AFP / Noel Celis
  • AFP / Str

Life in the time of coronavirus: Beijing

Tuesday 17 March 2020

"Every time I enter a building nowadays, I say a little silent prayer before a little plastic gun is pointed at my head," writes Patrick Baert, AFP's Beijing bureau chief. "After all, the contraption literally holds the key to whether I get in or not."

"Welcome to life in the time of the novel coronavirus in Beijing."

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AFP / Peter Parks

China then and now

Thursday 3 October 2019

"I could feel something was amiss as soon as I started walking down the street in downtown Beijing," writes Patrick Baert, on when he returned to the country after a 15-year absence to take up the post of bureau chief. "No-one was paying any attention to me."

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