Prognosis
Virus Panic Devastates Chinatowns From New York to Sydney
- As coronavirus spreads, anxiety is seeping through communities
- Panic-buying of sanitizers, face masks sees some firms thrive
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Some 5,000 miles from Hubei province, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus outbreak, the streets of a northern Sydney suburb that’s home to a large number of Chinese are almost deserted. A chalk board propped outside a small eatery in Eastwood tries to reassure and lure in customers with words written in Mandarin: “The restaurant has been sanitized!”
Business is down 70% since late January when the first case of the novel virus was reported in Australia, according to Lily Zhou, 39, who owns the Shanghai-style restaurant with her husband. If things continue as they are now, Zhou said she can only stay in business “at most three months.”