After arriving at the inn run by the local woman who had invited them to stay. Zane began to speak with her as she sat down at their table during their meal. He told her all about what happened in America, at least in the year or so following the apocalypse that he was there.
But to explain how two whole years' worth of information was missing, Zane mentioned how he had more or less been island hopping across the sea. And thus his information was not up do date. The world had suffered a calamity. With the human race losing nearly 99% percent of its population in the first year.
By now, those who remained were either entirely awakened, or mostly so. It was a culling of mass proportions. But in the end the strong survived, thus was often the way of nature. China, of course having a substantially larger population than most of the world, still had many people running across its country side.