Mainland China may be experiencing a prime example of karma, a Sanskrit word that is a core concept in some Eastern religions. The saying, “What goes around, comes around” describes an aspect of karma and can be applied to China seeing a rise in new coronavirus cases just as restrictions in some areas are being eased.

Authorities in China, where the pandemic began, are taking steps to prevent a second wave of COVID-19 from people entering the country from abroad and on people who have yet to show symptoms but are at higher risk of infection due to where they have been.

Wuhan and the Hubei province have gone seven days with no reported new cases but in Northeastern Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia, where Chinese nationals and others enter from Russia, about 50 new cases have been logged.

In recent years, China has been making inroads into Africa for needed raw materials, meaning an increase in the number of African business people visiting China. In the U.S., the African American population has been hit hard by the coronavirus in crowded urban areas. Black Americans are also more prone to underlying health problems like diabetes and obesity, known factors that increase the risk of contracting COVID-19.

In Guangzhou, located about 80 miles (130 km) from Hong Kong, the scrutiny of foreigners has stepped up with authorities ordering bars and restaurants not to serve clients who appear to be of African origin, according to the U.S. consulate in the city.

A statement released by the consulate said that anyone with "African contacts" faces mandatory virus tests followed by quarantine, regardless of recent travel history or previous isolation. It advised African Americans or those who may have had contact with nationals of African origin to avoid the city.

If a “second wave” does strike China, it will be another blow to the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping already under criticism for allowing the pandemic to spread globally. According to William Hurst, a Yahoo!news contributor, the problems with how China deals with a crisis date to 1958, way before smartphones and “real-time” reporting.

Hurst’s article discussed the “Great Leap Forward” that began in 1958 where all land and labor went from private family units to government-run collectives. Local leaders, fearing the consequences of being perceived as unproductive, reported outlandish yields and harvests.

Higher authorities accepted the exaggerated reports, the Communist Party was gleeful at their success and proceeded to take whatever harvest was available and put it into storage at collective warehouses. There it rotted away as there was no distribution system to send some of it back to areas now devoid of any grain.

Over 30 million people starved to death over the next four years, with terrible stories of violence, even cannibalism, being spread. Panic spread and social order broke down throughout much of the country.

The comparisons are frightening with Xi Jinping’s rise to power and a return to what Hurst sees as the type of thinking from the Maoist era (1949 to 1976). Li Wenliang, a young doctor who tried to raise the alarm on the coronavirus, was admonished and threatened by a letter, given to him by local police after they interrogated him on Jan. 3. Li died of the disease on Feb. 7.

The message was clear to local authorities in Wuhan that it was better to underreport deaths and cases instead of face scrutiny like Li Wenliang did and as the agricultural authorities feared 62 years ago with grain harvests. Unlike the grain, the coronavirus has a much more efficient method of “distribution” that the whole world is now aware of. That is not good karma.