When the Covid-19 situation began to deteriorate in the UK last week, Jennie Lan knew that China would be the safest place for her.

Lan, a graduate student at the University of London (UCL), is worried that the British people don't take precautions like wearing masks, even though the number of people infected with nCoV in the country is growing rapidly. "People here don't care about nCoV. However, the local government is still in good control," Lan said, adding that she will fly back to China on March 17 and stay with her parents.

Just a few weeks earlier, many Chinese had gone abroad to avoid nCoV, when an outbreak broke out in Wuhan, Hubei province and spread to all other localities. Now, things have reversed when a series of people are rushing to China because they believe this is the safest place.

Apple Group last week announced it would reopen stores in China, but closed all businesses in other countries within two weeks. A team from Wuhan city is planning to leave the training ground in Spain to return to China because of Covid-19 in Europe. Billionaire Jack Ma recently promised to contribute one million masks and 500,000 nCoV tests to the United States.

The National Health Commission of China on March 16 declared its top priority now was to prevent "foreign" cases, instead of focusing on outbreaks in the territory as in the previous period. Beijing's government last week announced that people from abroad would be quarantined for 14 days at designated locations to protect the capital.

Life in China has yet to return to normal, but people feel the situation is under control. Many praised the community for its willingness to take drastic government measures such as closing stores, quarantining at home, enforcing masks, and constantly checking body temperature.

A question also arises: Why are many countries unprepared despite having witnessed what happened in China for two months?

The World Health Organization (WHO) said China recorded only 27 new cases of nCoV on March 15, compared with 10,955 cases in the rest of the world. "Europe has become a global epidemic," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Josh Liu, an American dentist working in Shanghai, has experienced all ups and downs in China since Covid-19 started. "We have to leave," he told his wife when visiting his family in Sichuan province in late January.

They bought last-minute airline tickets and took their one-year-old son to Liu's private home near San Francisco, USA. Each week, they consider the possibility of returning to China. The turning point came last week, when private clinics in Shanghai were resumed, while the first cases of nCoV appeared in San Francisco. "We think China is now safer," Liu said.

When Liu's family landed in Shanghai on March 10, the health workers measured their temperature and asked their whereabouts in the US, as well as whether they had been hospitalized recently. Liu's family was then asked to go home and separate themselves for 14 days.

"People obey the order here and they are willing to accept very strict rules. Some say 'it's annoying', but that's why it's safer here," Liu said.

While the US and Europe have imposed restrictions on travel, closing all nonessential businesses, stores in China are now operating again. Traffic in Beijing and Shanghai is also bustling, though not as crowded as usual. Hubei Province and Wuhan capital are still blocked, but the recent visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed that the country's leadership believes the crisis is about to end.

Linda Reed, an American teacher who teaches English in Nanjing, wants to return to Tennessee in April to support her younger sister's preparation. Worried about the risk of spreading nCoV to her relatives, she emailed the state government's plague specialist about quarantine regulations and related procedures. This person said that Reed could consider staying at a hotel individually and advised her to follow general instructions.

But this answer made Reed, 37, more worried and decided to cancel the trip. "He did not say anything wrong. The problem is that the Tennessee health department clearly has no preparation to deal with the risk of disease outbreaks," she said.

Reed expressed sadness because the family could not reunite the day the grandchild was born, but said that this would be safer for the father living in eastern Washington State, as well as for herself. "In countries where Covid-19 appears, I think China is currently the safest place," the American teacher added.

The Tennessee Department of Health spokesman said the agency is taking an active and continuous approach to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance. Accordingly, people returning from the countries on the alert list need self-isolation and health monitoring for 14 days.

On the morning of March 17, China recorded 21 more cases of nCoV, of which 20 cases were "imported" and only one case of internal infection in Wuhan. The total number of cases in the country is nearly 81,000, of which more than 3,200 deaths and more than 68,000 have recovered.

Many Chinese have been angry that the government concealed information about Covid-19 until it was too late, many also doubted the statistics released by Beijing.

One of them is Lan, a 22-year-old student studying for a master's degree at UCL. She bought 500 masks and sent them to her family in Zhejiang province in January because she was worried about her relatives.

The situation reversed a week ago. Her parents followed the news about Covid-19 through a chat group of 500 parents on WeChat. They begged their daughter to go home, expressing their willingness to send a mask to England if they could not return home.

Lan transferred the right to rent an apartment in London, which was due until September, to another person and bought a one-way ticket to China. Her hometown is currently reporting very few cases of nCoV, while Lan's parents' housing has not been detected.

She feels that China is more transparent and proactive in its efforts to fight Covid-19 than Britain. "The British government is not in good control of the situation," Lan said.

The number of positive cases of nCoV in the UK is now more than 1,500, of which 55 people have died. British health authorities warn about 15% of the population, or 7.9 million people, could be hospitalized due to Covid-19 spread in the next 12 months.

In the United States, the number of cases increased to 4,599 after the country had 919 more positive cases on March 17. The United States also recorded 18 more deaths, bringing the number of deaths due to Covid-19 to 86. A series of states in the United States have declared a state of emergency, while many major cities have also ordered the closure of amusement spots. , entertainment to prevent the disease from spreading.