MP SPEAKS | CNN news headlined: "Thousands packed the streets to celebrate New Year's Eve in Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged, as other cities worldwide were deserted."

This is the modern story of “A Tale of Two Cities”, the historical novel by Charles Dickens which I studied in the literature class when I was Form IV in Batu Pahat High School in 1958.

Dickens’ famous opening sentence is particularly relevant to the opening of the year 2021:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present...