The mopeds are back in Hanoi, cars once more clog Karachi's streets and gridlock has returned to Beijing's ring roads — as lockdowns caused by the coronavirus ease, the temporary respite from traffic has also been broken.

Asia's megacities are notoriously traffic-choked, inflicting dizzying pollution and enervating daily delays on their residents.

Yet for a few weeks pedestrians ruled the roads as lockdowns, curfews and self-isolation prodded by fears over the Covid-19 pandemic did the once unthinkable and kept hundreds of millions of people indoors.

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