Life in Beijing right now is pretty bizarre, very post-apocalyptic.

This is Josh Chin. He's a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and he's been living and reporting in China for the last 10 years.

It's a city of 20 million people or more, depending on the time of year, and for the last few weeks, it's been almost completely empty.

I try to go out every day just to maintain my sanity, but it's only really supermarkets and a handful of restaurants that are still open.

No traffic.

You walk down the street, you can actually hear birds chirping, which almost never happens.

You know, and this is one of the most populous cities in the world,

and on most days it's cacophonous, and there are people everywhere.

And now you go out and there's none.

Fear of the coronavirus has kept most people at home for weeks now, since the start of the lunar New Year holiday in late January.

But even though people aren't outside that much these days, it doesn't mean they're not

being watched.

As a journalist in China, Josh is accustomed to it.

But you also kind of get used to it, and I think a lot of people in China just, they have that sense and it sort of fades into the background after a while.

But now with coronavirus, things have escalated.

More than 60,000 people have gotten sick worldwide.

At least 1,300 have died.

And to keep the virus at bay, the Chinese government is paying

even more attention to people's movements in a really granular way. They've started blocking

off apartment complexes. So basically, I think it's every apartment complex. Definitely mine and

all the ones I've seen in my walks around the neighborhood. They're all blocked off so there's only

a single entrance. So that means that they can take the temperature of everyone coming in and out. But the very least, they all blocked off so there's only a single entrance.

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