I think this is a very interesting effect. China has a fantastic ability to mobilize as one when needed. The vast majority of the time, the insane amount of control this requires, is something we're simply not comfortable with giving to governments. But sometimes, just sometimes, the results are worth it.
The closest equivalence I could think of that'd be familiar to American ears, would be the WW2 war effort. It's not how most of us would want a country run day-to-day, but the ability to do so when needed is incredibly powerful.
Pumping a hospital out in a week or a battleship out in a month aren't dissimilar in national focus. And they're both achievements. What makes China feel alien to us is that this is their default stance.
(And that said, there's plenty to be critical of in the earlier days of China's response. But in the interest of sharing data and research, we're catching more flies with honey.)
After this pandemic has died down, we should compare and contrast different countries' responses and try to appraise objectively just how much of a difference they made. China is trying really hard to make the case that their authoritarian approach is a model for the world, and it's too easy to be persuaded by that rhetoric when everyone is afraid and panicking. Meanwhile, some countries are trying just as hard to persuade their citizens that everything is okay when in fact it isn't. When all is said and done, we'll see how well that works, too.
Depending on how things go, I think South Korea could become either a model for the free world or a lesson in the shortfalls of democracy. They were doing pretty well until mid-February without imposing any travel bans or other measures that might be considered authoritarian, but then the number of cases exploded and everyone had to scramble. Instead of strong central control, most things were delegated to local governments. Different cities and provinces took different initiatives, quickly learning from each other when one of them came up with a new idea such as drive-thru testing. The shortage of hospital beds was met by large companies (hello, Samsung) and megachurches donating their own resorts and conference facilities for use as quarantine centers. Hundreds of doctors rushed to Daegu to help with the medical crisis there, and faced very little bureaucratic red tape in doing so.
The decentralized approach has its own inefficiencies, of course, especially in places with incompetent leaders or when dealing with a cult that refuses to cooperate. But when South Korea says that there were only 35 new cases last night, compared to hundreds a week ago, you can actually trust that it's a good-faith report because it's been cross-checked by so many independent players. The central government misreported the case count for my city a couple of times lately, and the city immediately issued corrections.
The way the Chinese bureaucracy works is that lower-level local government officials have less experience than higher-level officials. They get promotions based on results. Xi Jinping himself was, during the SARS period, the head of a province, and did very well within containing SARS within that province. It doesn’t surprise me if local Wuhan officials simply weren’t as competent in matters of disease containment than the central government.
The Chinese government is not a monolith. Comparing to 1984-style authoritarianism wouldn’t be entirely accurate either. I think it is best compared to a large corporation.
You seem to be afraid of China exporting its model. Chinese diplomats have repeatedly said that they are not interested in doing that. They say: the Chinese way of international relations is one of mutual respect: we will not impose our system on you and you will not impose your system on us. But if you voluntarily want to learn from us then you are welcome.
I'm not judging, just want to bring some balance to this "truth" you speak of...
You can disagree with their claims. But that is not the same as arguing that any form of self promotion is bad.
Of course, China is far from perfect. Bad things do happen, I am not denying that. If we are speaking about balance, then I think that in western discourse the balance has tipped too much towards the ‘china is always bad in every aspect’ side, totally ignoring or actively denying the good sides, and ignoring equally bad things that happen in their own places.
Will China meddle when their interests are threatened? Of course, and so will any other country in the world.
If China’s interests conflict with yours, then it is fine to point that out. It is not fine to paint them as the bad guys just because they have conflicting interests. And even then, such issues can be resolved peacefully: China has shown that it is interested in negotiation and being reasonable. You wouldn’t believe how much land China has given up since the 40s as part of negotiation deals with other countries. It is time to stop this cold war mentality where it is us vs the evil commies who are out to conquer the world.
I relate to this a lot based on my visit there. Things seem very unified. Hell, even dozens of old people get together every night and dance on the street. When have you ever seen communities like that in the US? We're too busy being self absorbed. We have no shared mission.
Isn't having a massive military Americas default stance as well?
The US was sometimes able to mobilize quickly in response to extraordinary circumstances (WWII production being an example), but that isn't really our default state, and requires consensus-building rather than orders from on high. But sadly our ability to do so even in extraordinary circumstances has atrophied.
But as a European, the US's military footing doesn't feel alien to us at all. They're essentially the modernization of the British Empire, in that their single greatest "weapon" is force projection, rather than the million-man-armies of the East. We don't necessarily identify with it anymore, but it still feels more familiar than alien.
(the original links in Italian are at the bottom of the post if you prefer that)
"Sorry, but to me, as a doctor, it's not reassuring that the most serious are mainly elderly people with other pathologies."
This could not be less helpful or more harmful. There is no useful information (that i got to, couldnt get all the way through). This is not an letter to the who or CDC trying to affect policy. This is a goddamn reddit post to scare people, vaguely, with the feelings of hospital staff. Im glad this doctor cares about comorbid patients, but this emotional non-rational prose is what drives mass hysteria and panics. We need data and recommendations.
Seemed quite helpful to me. Much more so than the pure speculation I'm hearing from other sources.
I got the impression the poster wanted to get their truth out, not fear monger.
Italy also has a surprisingly large number of Chinese migrant workers, mainly in the fashion and leather goods sector. Skilled Chinese workers in Milan and Prato provide the kudos of the "Made in Italy" label at considerably lower cost.
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/05/17/long-ter...
As for praising the Chinese response - I think the reasons will be very clear soon to most people - without a very decisive and heavy handed response the health care systems in most developed countries will face very severe consequences or collapse.
We are at the denial stage still with people finding excuses why Italy is different, etc, etc
The US is 8 days behind Italy is 8 days behind Korea.
Italy has 3.18 beds per 1,000 people. The United States has 2.77 beds per 1,000 people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp...
I'm in the US, but if you think that makes me think the US is prepared, you have it backwards. I'd guess that if we're not in worse shape than Italy in two weeks, we'll be very lucky.
For the country as a whole, I have it at 20 days until we run out of beds. Like Italy, seems reasonable to expect some areas will hit it sooner.
Here's my growth equation:
BedsNeeded = CurrentCases * DailyGrowthRate ^ DaysOfGrowth * SevereAndCriticalRate
708 = CurrentCases, the number of COVID-19 cases in the US as of March 9, 2020. [1]
1.6 = DailyGrowthRate, Number of today's cases / Number of yesterday's cases. [2]
20 = DaysOfGrowth, how many days to run the simulation.
0.1 = SevereAndCriticalRate, the percentage of cases requiring a hospital bed. [3]
855,919 = BedsNeeded
This is based on the above-quoted 2.77 beds per 1000 people, and a US population of 327.2M people, for 906,344 beds available.
[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ [2] Ibid, rough average of last week's growth rate [3] Rough guess from above comments and other reading.
Working sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15CRanm0MHyappT_3J1qc...
People here are trying to find any reason that they can point to about other countries to indicate that the drastic measures that they've taken aren't necessary here.
That the hospitals being pushed to the breaking point won't happen here.
I wasn't sure if that's what cjbprime was going for (and it wasn't!), but I thought I'd respond to that sentiment just in case. I think it's important that more people here (specifically in the United States) consider the possibility that we'll be in a similar situation as Italy in a few weeks.
Hell, my folks think we all might've gotten in way back in early January on a family cruise we took; a bunch of us came down with what we all thought was a particularly nasty flu, but without any nausea (just headaches, muscle aches, fatigue, and coughing) midway through. My stepmom ended up going to the hospital when she didn't get over it after a week (but it was still well before anyone thought SARS-CoV-2 had spread beyond China, so nobody tested for it, despite testing for the more typical flus and not finding anything; they ended up treating her as if it was a flu anyway). The rest of us toughed it out and eventually got over it, me figuring "alright I guess the normal seasonal flu is just extra bad this year; next year I'm totally gonna remember to get that flu shot, promise".
The thought was in the back of my mind for awhile that "maybe we did get Coronavirus somehow" (e.g. from other tourists on the boat), especially when the reports of cruise ship quarantines hit the news. In hindsight, I probably should've acted on it and gotten checked out, or otherwise at least said something. If only foresight was 20/20, too. I still don't think it really was SARS-CoV-2 (if it was, I'd expect coworkers and friends and non-cruise-attending family to have gotten it, too, but that didn't seem to be the case; then again, maybe they did get sick and made the same assumption of "nah, this is just the usual winter flu or cold"), but still.
Not sure where I was going with that, but yeah. I think the denialism's just because of previous epidemics in recent memory getting widespread news coverage (swine flu, bird flu, West Nile, etc.) only to end up being minor compared to, say, Spanish flu or polio or measles or other "realer" pandemics from "back in the olden days" (or even current ones like HIV/AIDS, which we all were fine with ignoring 'cause "we're good Christians boys and girls and not them there homosexuals or adulterers").
And then we see the same pattern unfolding here and expect it to blow over again. For all we know we've all been getting infected but we laugh it off as "oh yeah, sure, I totally have the beer virus, guess I get to call in sick, hahaha" and work through it, hoping that there's no truth to that particular joke.
As an example: The Netherlands, where I live, has had a significant rise and our measures are.. self-isolate on showing symptoms, wash hands more often and don't shake hands. The former completely misses the problems with spreading during the incubation period (and worse, there are cases where you may leave, despite not being tested negative yet, solely on the basis of not showing symptoms. This totally misses the fact one can still be a carrier for at least a few days: antibodies don't work outside your body, last time I checked biology). The middle one is self-explanatory, but may also hurt your microbiome and can cause resistant bacteria when done too aggressively. The third measure.. completely misses the scope of the problem. You can still touch objects others have touched on the regular, still opening up a potentially worse way for the virus to carry over. Not to mention the primarily presented alternative is to.. touch elbows? Which looks like a poor joke and still results in touch.
What are some alternatives that would have more effect? Work from home unless coming to the office is absolutely necessary, don't go to social places (especially not large city centers like Amsterdam, Utrecht, etc.), avoid social contact with strangers or outgoing people. All measures that could be implemented fairly easily and have minimal impact on the economy given the alternatives: can't shop physically? Shop online. Can't have social contact online? Play an online game, chat through VoIP. Not working at the office? Surely you can be at least 80-90% as efficient as at the workplace with some etiquette, have some discipline. And don't get me started on people who get the flu, infect others and completely ignore that other illnesses may mask the virus.
Maybe survival of the fittest just needed to weed out stupidity. But hey, that's all just my opinion / hypothesis.
Are you thinking of Singapore?
In my opinion, the distrust in WHO just reflects poorly on the people who are distrustful. They are so hell-bent on confirming their world view that China must be the bad guy, that they would rather believe that the WHO is corrupted than accepting the facts.
But outside of Wuhan, there is likely a number of infected persons in the population still transmitting it and waiting to resurface into more serious cases after people get back to work.
There are even multiple foreigners in China who can confirm the situation. Checkout the Youtube videos by Daniel Dumbrill in February.
Might there still be hidden carriers in the population? Absolutely. China must remain vigilant. This stuff is hard.
My wife is considering flying back to China if things get worse here in the Netherlands. I agree with her: I also think that by now China is probably safer than anywhere else in the world. Multiple provinces have downgraded their emergency level, some are even virus free. Within Wuhan, multiple temporary hospitals have closed because they are no longer needed. People are slowly getting back to work. Containment efforts are shifting from ‘preventing the virus from getting out’ to ‘prevent it from getting in from foreign countries’.
As such, we'll know when life resumes and people go back to work en masse.
I don't understand why the topic of coronavirus does this to people.
Just talk more civilly and make your point. Instead your comments read more like disjointed, frantic tweets. Get a grip.
We are, as much of the world, importers from China, but many enterprises here are also, somewhat, strong exporters to China (I can see it from my dayjob as industrial automation SI), and if you factor in the small average size of Italian companies requiring many individual contacts (contrast with Germany where companies on average are bigger), you can imagine that there is a strong flow of people to and fro. Maybe the small size of companies requiring more people to establish commercial links + population being more uniformly settled across the country (no huge wildland or sparsely inhabited area left in Po Valley, except maybe some parts of Piedmont?) + a certain cultural inclination for useless quarreling hindering political action + inefficiencies in the administration + an unsolved conflict of power between central gov't and periphery possibly causing some waste of time in other quarreling + having to keep the vast group of small business owners somewhat quiet has resulted in a vast spreading of the virus.
The interesting thing is that, if you replace China with Germany in the paragraph above (wrt. the possible German origin of the outbreak in Italy), the consideration about business links would still apply.
Another interesting thing I have just noticed is that some journalists are now openly praising the Chinese handling of the crisis. Maybe this may sound strange to an American :D but there has been for some time a growing cross-partisan movement calling for stronger links to China. In fact this movement is somewhat present in European business community, so it is not so special to Italy, but nonetheless it is interesting to see these comments of open praise.