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> I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best. Countries without authoritarian governments like

> I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best. Countries without authoritarian governments likely don't have the means to effectively quarantine major cities and shut down massive portions of their economy immediately without major problems arising. Given a couple weeks, sure, but by then it will be too late. It may well seem that way in retrospect. When it does, just remember that those same authoritarian governments are the ones who played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistleblowers, and refused to let international experts in.

asiachick 7y ago
Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light a hand on things. Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) but in this particular case that feature will turn out to be bug.
- nvilcins 7y ago
  In no way is this refuting or at least commenting on the original post. > [..] played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistleblowers, and refused to let international experts in. Diverting a sensitive topic to a false-equivalence seems to be a go-to tactic of those in favor of China (Chinese government to be precise, the actual Chinese people are the biggest victims here).
- simonh 7y ago
  The point is that if doctors had been free to investigate and alert the existence of the disease very early on, it might have been contained to a small number of cases right from the start, and never gained any traction in the population in the first place. The first few weeks of an outbreak are absolutely crucial, and the Chinese authorities actively obstructed efforts to address the issue in that period precisely because of their authoritarian system.
  - Cookingboy 7y ago
    Well from what we've seen in Japan and South Korea, that seems to be far from guaranteed. Those countries had all the warnings they needed, and knew much more about the virus than the earlier days, yet they still failed to contain the initially small outbreaks.
    - johnchristopher 7y ago
      How can they have all the warnings they needed if China didn't give them the right info from the start ? That 27 days incubation period got a lot of people infected and becoming carriers. It's like, China had a relatively well defined outbreak center while other countries started with a wide spread invisible web of carriers.
      - lazylizard 7y ago
        maybe not all. but from the moment china admitted they had an outbreak. maybe a more wary country would...ban all non-local travelers from china , quarantine all locals travelling from china, stop all flights to-and-from china, revoke all visas of chinese people...etc
      - celticninja 7y ago
        Also China could have prevented people leaving, but by allowing infected people to leave they ensure that China does not need to fight it in isolation, and is not impacted more than other countries, ie. crab mentality
      - Aeolun 7y ago
        Japan started with a swarm of Chinese visitors during Chinese new year. Hardly an auspicious beginning.
      - oefrha 7y ago
        A single cruise ship is about as well defined as targets can get. It’s pretty damn hard to blame anyone else for completely screwing that up.
      - deleted 7y ago
- sveme 7y ago
  The Milan fashion show was basically cancelled and whole cities in Italy have been cordoned off under the threat of military action if the quarantine isn't followed. >Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? So Yes.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    I've had a dig around the BBC News website and despite Italy being the lead story, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51638095 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51638095, quarantine and control of population movement doesn't get any 'column inches' - all they do say is borders aren't closing. I'd guess the UK government have told them not to report quarantine in order to keep the UK population calmer.
- woopdidoop 7y ago
  > Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? You are poorly informed. The Italian government did precisely that this weekend.
  - bitreality 7y ago
    Just wait until it happens on a massive scale, and does not appear to be stopping the spread of the virus. People in the West are going to be tough to keep on lockdown. The entire purpose of lockdowns and quarantines at this point seem to be delaying until a vaccine is ready. This will be hard for the average person to understand, and people think much more critically in the West.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >People in the West are going to be tough to keep on lockdown Historically they haven't been proven particularly tough to lock down, stir up by authoritarians (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, etc), be surveilled, sold lies, and so on... As for those "obedient" Chinese, they got this authoritarian party they have today by doing a whole revolution thing first... >people think much more critically in the West. That's what uncritical westerners are told...
    - cylinder 7y ago
      It's very easy to lock people down. have you ever been in New York before a declared snow day? How about Houston just before a big hurricane? Absolute ghost towns. People are actually eager to be told to stay home and not go to work. They don't have to be forced. Especially if it's for their safety.
      - alisonatwork 7y ago
        Many parts of China have been on lockdown for over 4 weeks now. Hundreds of millions of people have still not returned to work. I am not sure a lockdown of this scale will be accepted in other countries.
- littlestymaar 7y ago
  > Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? Look at Italy right now. > Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light a hand on things. Sure, but this has nothing to do with authoritarian states vs democracy. You'll find a ton of authoritarian states doing exactly the same. It's just a matter of who's the ruling class, and in most places in the world (100% of liberal democracies but also most authoritarian states), it's the business owners, so of course they will try and save their business before their people. > Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) but in this particular case that feature will turn out to be bug. Western people aren't uncontrollable. The one who are, are the one who are pissed of by their plutocratic governments and have lost all faith in them. I'm pretty convinced that Switzerland will be fine, and I'm not surprised Italy is in the same kind of shit than Iran. I'm French, and we've been lucky so far, but I expect chaos when it's going to start. The government has long lost all political legitimity here, and people absolutely distrust them, so I don't think they will not peacefully comply to government attempt to limit the propagation.
  - bitreality 7y ago
    Here's the thing with Italy. They're the first Western country to get a major outbreak. They're being told to do things and assuming that it will stop the virus. But the truth is, containment does not actually stop the virus. It simply slows it. When or if this hits the US or elsewhere in Europe, and it becomes obvious that despite the quarantine in Italy, the virus still continued to spread, they will question the measures being taken. As time goes on, the West will become critical of government response and may be difficult to control. In China when the government tells its citizens to do something, they just do it. They don't ask why. They don't deliberate on whether it's the correct choice. They simply follow the directions. In the West, everything is up for debate. People don't like to be told what to do.
    - baq 7y ago
      slowing down the virus is required while hospital capacity is being scaled up.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Why yes; cities / counties in Italy are on lockdown, a hotel in Tenerife is quarantined, the biggest mobile conference, Mobile World Conference in Barcelona was cancelled (a move which will affect the sector for months / years), etc. I'm not sure if you just haven't heard of these things or if you're intentionally ignoring them to make a point.
- ainiriand 7y ago
  Barcelona cancelled the Mobile World Congress right away a few days ago. So yes, it is ready to do that.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    The organizers of the MWC canceled it. Barcelona didn't want them to do so.
- dunkelheit 7y ago
  By now we know much more about the virus and the threat is evident so the situation is not really comparable to the start of the outbreak. I guess a lot of "what if it started in another country" scenarios can be debated, ranging from "another government wouldn't cover up the real situation so the virus would be quickly contained" to "western governments wouldn't have the balls to quickly enact proper quarantine measures so the virus would spread much more quickly" but is it really productive? At this point these debates are pure speculation.
  - gdubs 7y ago
    I the 21st century we should be able to do better then speculate and have a clear idea of what the proper response is to a virus like this or any other.
- octodog 7y ago
  I'm guessing most countries have laws allowing the authorities to forcibly quarantine people if they feel they are at risk of spreading disease, and similar laws for limiting public activity. Certainly they do for shutting schools and other public buildings. Institutions in developed countries are far better equipped to deal with this level of crisis than China has been. Australia, where I'm from, has had infections since mid Jan but has been able to effectively quarantine people and prevent community transmission thus far.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  Actually I’m in Japan at the moment and people seem to be taking reasonable precautions without the use of force. Wearing masks, avoiding crowded places, maintaining good hygiene, staggering work hours, working from home and stocking up on supplies. I mean, where does this idea come from that people need a dictator or they’re completely lost and as you’re saying, freedom in this case is a bug? You might find because people have access to free information and good services means they can look after themselves and they just might ?
- sailfast 7y ago
  Did it ever occur to you that if there is open / reliable information about the disease people might choose not to go out and/or engage in these conferences? The whole reason all of these cancellations are happening in the first place (MWC, etc) is because rational actors have decided (without government intervention and even with incomplete information) that the risks are too great. Honestly my main concern in the United States is the complete and utter panic that will be caused by something that is only marginally less dangerous than getting in one's car to go to work each morning. A government concerned with "not screwing up" can at times take drastic "emergency" measures with an overly cautious basis (at best) and with malintent (at worst), and we should be skeptical and continue to push for reasons for any actions. I don't see how this turns out to be a bug. They can have more impact on peoples actions with a press conference presenting skewed data than with any sort of attempt at straight-up bans or enforced quarantines.
  - GVIrish 7y ago
    > Honestly my main concern in the United States is the complete and utter panic that will be caused by something that is only marginally less dangerous than getting in one's car to go to work each morning. If the fatality rate of COVID-19 is 2% as feared, that is dramatically more dangerous than getting in your car every morning. The flu kills somewhere around 20-30k Americans every year. The common flu has a fatality rate of around .1%. So for something that is potentially 20 times as deadly, we're looking at hundreds of thousands of deaths. By contrast, car accidents only kill around 35k Americans per year.
    - sailfast 7y ago
      Absolutely. It's scary as hell in that context and I likely was typing that trying to cope with the reality. I'm really hoping we get more data on this so we can figure out what's happening. With the lack of testing / confirmation and light symptoms it must be impossible for our science community to track things right now.
- sigstoat 7y ago
  > in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) this is childish. "the economy" is the thing that makes everything you have, and the food you eat and medicines you need. there's very good reason to not just turn it all off.
- Udo 7y ago
  > Will the governments ban conventions? I would have had to go to a convention/trade show in Paris next week, but luckily it got postponed for two months. So far people are getting more cautious. Between the two standard criticisms "too little, too late" and "unnecessary panic" there is very little margin, especially in public opinion. Here in Germany, people are starting to stock up on supplies, which is reasonable unless they completely plunder the supermarkets. Otherwise, it's all wait-and-see over here. Of course it doesn't help that Europe is also in the midst of flu season...
dlwdlw 7y ago
The authoritarianism is a red herring IMO. The real issue is economic incentives trumping everything else. For example in Japan if you test positive the hospital gets quarantined losing tons of money. In the US, you can end up payong huge medical bills. The fear is the same. The lesson from WW2 should have been that people are all the same when pushed to extremes. This includes the people who make up the communist party leadership in China and every moral philosoher in the west as well. My armchair belief is that China has ended up absorbing at a global scale, all of capitalism’s externalities. It is an integral part of the world that gives us many things we take for granted like cheap iphones and many others. We do NOT have the convenience to look away and scapegoat one aspect without taking into consideration the whole. This ended up kinda ranty but every time coronavirus is used to bring up something whose purpose is to draw an “us vs them” line between the world and China I want to throw something.
- calf 7y ago
  I often think to the fable of Armus in ST:TNG, an advanced civilization achieved transcendence, but they left behind the black tar creature that gained sentience and represented all of their evils.
  - mark_l_watson 7y ago
    +1 I am not sure why, but your comment is the best thing I have read this morning. A couple of my friends kid me about it, but I meditate almost every day for world peace and the reduction of suffering in the world. It can’t hurt and it makes me feel more connected to the world at large. I live in a small town, volunteering at the local food bank is one of my favorite activities, but I tend to think too much about just local life. I have a difficult time getting too excited about national/global politics, etc. Meditation on peace is the most effort I put into the global situation.
- jonplackett 7y ago
  This is a thoughtful comment. Don’t see why it’s getting downvoted.
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
> those same authoritarian governments are the ones who played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistle-blowers, and refused to let international experts in. I'm scared that it will become a lot worse than that. The pandemic gives them a real-life stress test and lessons to harden the surveillance state and further improve technical controls and tweak the technology to become more effective. It's another step on the road to integrating and normalizing intrusive and outrageous ideas for government to retain control. (-> both in China and the West!) From the videos I watched from Chinese pigs (aka LE) in uniforms beating old people not wearing a mask and welding the doors shut of giant apartment blocks where people live like ants (or slaves), I tell myself this will not happen in the West. Then I look at our current research and Europe's own ambition to create a central biometrics database (along with tweets from the UK LE which ask you to report anything people see online that may look like terror and all I think is "STASI!" neighborhood watch. These days I see a uniform and my first reaction is disgust mixed with fear, the sort of claustrophobic feeling normally only Orwell brings up in me. I get that quarantine laws (locking people in their homes, issuing a curfew, rations etc) can be harsh but important to combat a deadly problem. But looking at the authorities in charge in the West I wouldn't trust them for a second and think it's also a play with fire. There are lots of edge-cases everywhere for this to be a massive human rights violation (elderly care facilities, prisons, migrants, the homeless, and more power to the rigged justice systems and corrupt EU institutions and generally everyone already wielding lots of power) The CDC and WHO have utterly failed. Why are there no hand-outs of free face-masks and other PPE - oh because there are no stocks! - instead the problem is downplayed (by both WHO and the dear leaders). Why is there no transparency (constant news) about how many people an individual country is testing? Oh because we don't have adequate testing right now. Instead medical professionals were arguing on France24 yesterday whether the game between Juventus/Lyon should go ahead and they felt that they're not qualified to make a statement on a complex subject like this. Instead Italy and other countries are reminding us not to press the panic button just yet and media should be "more responsible in their reporting".
- stef25 7y ago
  What would have to take place for you to stop thinking this virus is going to push the entire world over the edge and fully in to 1984? CDC and WHO are probably not perfect but saying they "utterly failed" because you're angry over not getting a free face mask is a bit disrespectful toward the many people their working their asses off in times like these.
lawn 7y ago
Chernobyl comes to mind as another example of this.
- ajross 7y ago
  I think that's apt. Authoritarian governments are environments least able to prevent novel problems and least able to react to them with agility, but best able to coordinate state-scale responses. But in this case we'll see. China's problems don't end if they successfully contain the outbreak to Wuhan. Eventually everyone else will get sick too and re-infect the chinese via other roads.
lmilcin 7y ago
That's exactly my thought. Giving medal for dealing with the problem forgetting who let that problem get large in the first place. The time when Chinese doctors screamed there is something wrong but instead being helped were downplayed or even threatened would be enough to prevent it from snowballing it to the size we face today.
qzx_pierri 7y ago
> When it does, just remember that those same authoritarian governments are the ones who played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistleblowers, and refused to let international experts in. This doesn’t address the commenter’s claim that China did the best job of completely shutting their infrastructure down and quarantining the virus effectively. They did make their bed, but they also laid in it as well.
- CogitoCogito 7y ago
  The OP said "I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best." Had they dealt with it better initially, the might never have needed such draconian actions. "They made their bed" implies they did _not_ deal with it well at least initially.
infinity0 7y ago
The recent explosion in cases in South Korea, Italy and Iran would seem to suggest that in fact perhaps the officials in Wuhan did not fuck up handling the early part of the epidemic, at least much more so that the officials in these other countries. There are some indications of officials playing down the threat and lying, but this was also reversed quickly by higher levels of the same authoritarian government. Did this lying have a significant impact, more so than presumably-less lying in South Korea and Italy, that resulted in the same order-of-magnitude in explosion of cases, even though the world media was already on high alert? Don't be so overconfident at fitting world events and a few selected media stories into your prejudicial ideological convictions.
- rustymonday 7y ago
  I don't know how you could conclude they did not fuck up when they imprisoned doctors who blew the whistle on the outbreak. That's not to say other countries will fare much better. But China had by far the best chance at containment, and they blew it. And the rest of the world has to deal with the fallout.
  - infinity0 7y ago
    > I don't know how you could conclude they did not fuck up I explained in my comment - the sudden increase in cases in Wuhan in January, was not that much worse that what we're seeing in S Korea, Iran and Italy right now. These latter countries are also less dense than Wuhan, and also had plenty of warning time. Nobody was imprisoned in Italy, yet despite that we still have several hundred cases today. This suggests that this single imprisonment didn't have a huge effect on the epidemic in Wuhan. > by far the best chance at containment What does it mean to have a "chance" at containment, and what makes one "chance" "better" than another "chance"?? > the rest of the world has to deal with the fallout If you acknowledge there's a possibility that no "other countries will fare much better", why maintain such an accusatory tone? No government can control where an epidemic starts. By your logic, if the epidemic had started in the US, the government would be at fault if it prevented the epidemic from spreading to any other countries? Is that what you're saying? That's an extremely high bar, probably unrealistic.
samstave 7y ago
And welded people into their apartments so they couldnt leave no matter what, regardless of if they had it or not.
jstewartmobile 7y ago
considering the strong rumors that this is an engineered biological warfare agent escaped from the lab, authoritarianism still isn't looking so hot right now.
tebuevd 7y ago
I take it all back. We (the US) are not any better.

asiachick 7y ago

Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light a hand on things. Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) but in this particular case that feature will turn out to be bug.

nvilcins 7y ago
In no way is this refuting or at least commenting on the original post. > [..] played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistleblowers, and refused to let international experts in. Diverting a sensitive topic to a false-equivalence seems to be a go-to tactic of those in favor of China (Chinese government to be precise, the actual Chinese people are the biggest victims here).
simonh 7y ago
The point is that if doctors had been free to investigate and alert the existence of the disease very early on, it might have been contained to a small number of cases right from the start, and never gained any traction in the population in the first place. The first few weeks of an outbreak are absolutely crucial, and the Chinese authorities actively obstructed efforts to address the issue in that period precisely because of their authoritarian system.
- Cookingboy 7y ago
  Well from what we've seen in Japan and South Korea, that seems to be far from guaranteed. Those countries had all the warnings they needed, and knew much more about the virus than the earlier days, yet they still failed to contain the initially small outbreaks.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    How can they have all the warnings they needed if China didn't give them the right info from the start ? That 27 days incubation period got a lot of people infected and becoming carriers. It's like, China had a relatively well defined outbreak center while other countries started with a wide spread invisible web of carriers.
    - lazylizard 7y ago
      maybe not all. but from the moment china admitted they had an outbreak. maybe a more wary country would...ban all non-local travelers from china , quarantine all locals travelling from china, stop all flights to-and-from china, revoke all visas of chinese people...etc
    - celticninja 7y ago
      Also China could have prevented people leaving, but by allowing infected people to leave they ensure that China does not need to fight it in isolation, and is not impacted more than other countries, ie. crab mentality
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      Japan started with a swarm of Chinese visitors during Chinese new year. Hardly an auspicious beginning.
    - oefrha 7y ago
      A single cruise ship is about as well defined as targets can get. It’s pretty damn hard to blame anyone else for completely screwing that up.
    - deleted 7y ago
sveme 7y ago
The Milan fashion show was basically cancelled and whole cities in Italy have been cordoned off under the threat of military action if the quarantine isn't followed. >Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? So Yes.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  I've had a dig around the BBC News website and despite Italy being the lead story, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51638095 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51638095, quarantine and control of population movement doesn't get any 'column inches' - all they do say is borders aren't closing. I'd guess the UK government have told them not to report quarantine in order to keep the UK population calmer.
woopdidoop 7y ago
> Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? You are poorly informed. The Italian government did precisely that this weekend.
- bitreality 7y ago
  Just wait until it happens on a massive scale, and does not appear to be stopping the spread of the virus. People in the West are going to be tough to keep on lockdown. The entire purpose of lockdowns and quarantines at this point seem to be delaying until a vaccine is ready. This will be hard for the average person to understand, and people think much more critically in the West.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >People in the West are going to be tough to keep on lockdown Historically they haven't been proven particularly tough to lock down, stir up by authoritarians (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, etc), be surveilled, sold lies, and so on... As for those "obedient" Chinese, they got this authoritarian party they have today by doing a whole revolution thing first... >people think much more critically in the West. That's what uncritical westerners are told...
  - cylinder 7y ago
    It's very easy to lock people down. have you ever been in New York before a declared snow day? How about Houston just before a big hurricane? Absolute ghost towns. People are actually eager to be told to stay home and not go to work. They don't have to be forced. Especially if it's for their safety.
    - alisonatwork 7y ago
      Many parts of China have been on lockdown for over 4 weeks now. Hundreds of millions of people have still not returned to work. I am not sure a lockdown of this scale will be accepted in other countries.
littlestymaar 7y ago
> Do you really think it will be any different in the USA or Europe? Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls? Look at Italy right now. > Or will instead, in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) keep too light a hand on things. Sure, but this has nothing to do with authoritarian states vs democracy. You'll find a ton of authoritarian states doing exactly the same. It's just a matter of who's the ruling class, and in most places in the world (100% of liberal democracies but also most authoritarian states), it's the business owners, so of course they will try and save their business before their people. > Basically I don't expect the west to be able to react to this any better if it gets big. Their populations are uncontrollable (for mostly good reason) but in this particular case that feature will turn out to be bug. Western people aren't uncontrollable. The one who are, are the one who are pissed of by their plutocratic governments and have lost all faith in them. I'm pretty convinced that Switzerland will be fine, and I'm not surprised Italy is in the same kind of shit than Iran. I'm French, and we've been lucky so far, but I expect chaos when it's going to start. The government has long lost all political legitimity here, and people absolutely distrust them, so I don't think they will not peacefully comply to government attempt to limit the propagation.
- bitreality 7y ago
  Here's the thing with Italy. They're the first Western country to get a major outbreak. They're being told to do things and assuming that it will stop the virus. But the truth is, containment does not actually stop the virus. It simply slows it. When or if this hits the US or elsewhere in Europe, and it becomes obvious that despite the quarantine in Italy, the virus still continued to spread, they will question the measures being taken. As time goes on, the West will become critical of government response and may be difficult to control. In China when the government tells its citizens to do something, they just do it. They don't ask why. They don't deliberate on whether it's the correct choice. They simply follow the directions. In the West, everything is up for debate. People don't like to be told what to do.
  - baq 7y ago
    slowing down the virus is required while hospital capacity is being scaled up.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Why yes; cities / counties in Italy are on lockdown, a hotel in Tenerife is quarantined, the biggest mobile conference, Mobile World Conference in Barcelona was cancelled (a move which will affect the sector for months / years), etc. I'm not sure if you just haven't heard of these things or if you're intentionally ignoring them to make a point.
ainiriand 7y ago
Barcelona cancelled the Mobile World Congress right away a few days ago. So yes, it is ready to do that.
- ghaff 7y ago
  The organizers of the MWC canceled it. Barcelona didn't want them to do so.
dunkelheit 7y ago
By now we know much more about the virus and the threat is evident so the situation is not really comparable to the start of the outbreak. I guess a lot of "what if it started in another country" scenarios can be debated, ranging from "another government wouldn't cover up the real situation so the virus would be quickly contained" to "western governments wouldn't have the balls to quickly enact proper quarantine measures so the virus would spread much more quickly" but is it really productive? At this point these debates are pure speculation.
- gdubs 7y ago
  I the 21st century we should be able to do better then speculate and have a clear idea of what the proper response is to a virus like this or any other.
octodog 7y ago
I'm guessing most countries have laws allowing the authorities to forcibly quarantine people if they feel they are at risk of spreading disease, and similar laws for limiting public activity. Certainly they do for shutting schools and other public buildings. Institutions in developed countries are far better equipped to deal with this level of crisis than China has been. Australia, where I'm from, has had infections since mid Jan but has been able to effectively quarantine people and prevent community transmission thus far.
bamboozled 7y ago
Actually I’m in Japan at the moment and people seem to be taking reasonable precautions without the use of force. Wearing masks, avoiding crowded places, maintaining good hygiene, staggering work hours, working from home and stocking up on supplies. I mean, where does this idea come from that people need a dictator or they’re completely lost and as you’re saying, freedom in this case is a bug? You might find because people have access to free information and good services means they can look after themselves and they just might ?
sailfast 7y ago
Did it ever occur to you that if there is open / reliable information about the disease people might choose not to go out and/or engage in these conferences? The whole reason all of these cancellations are happening in the first place (MWC, etc) is because rational actors have decided (without government intervention and even with incomplete information) that the risks are too great. Honestly my main concern in the United States is the complete and utter panic that will be caused by something that is only marginally less dangerous than getting in one's car to go to work each morning. A government concerned with "not screwing up" can at times take drastic "emergency" measures with an overly cautious basis (at best) and with malintent (at worst), and we should be skeptical and continue to push for reasons for any actions. I don't see how this turns out to be a bug. They can have more impact on peoples actions with a press conference presenting skewed data than with any sort of attempt at straight-up bans or enforced quarantines.
- GVIrish 7y ago
  > Honestly my main concern in the United States is the complete and utter panic that will be caused by something that is only marginally less dangerous than getting in one's car to go to work each morning. If the fatality rate of COVID-19 is 2% as feared, that is dramatically more dangerous than getting in your car every morning. The flu kills somewhere around 20-30k Americans every year. The common flu has a fatality rate of around .1%. So for something that is potentially 20 times as deadly, we're looking at hundreds of thousands of deaths. By contrast, car accidents only kill around 35k Americans per year.
  - sailfast 7y ago
    Absolutely. It's scary as hell in that context and I likely was typing that trying to cope with the reality. I'm really hoping we get more data on this so we can figure out what's happening. With the lack of testing / confirmation and light symptoms it must be impossible for our science community to track things right now.
sigstoat 7y ago
> in the interest of "the economy" (ie, money) this is childish. "the economy" is the thing that makes everything you have, and the food you eat and medicines you need. there's very good reason to not just turn it all off.
Udo 7y ago
> Will the governments ban conventions? I would have had to go to a convention/trade show in Paris next week, but luckily it got postponed for two months. So far people are getting more cautious. Between the two standard criticisms "too little, too late" and "unnecessary panic" there is very little margin, especially in public opinion. Here in Germany, people are starting to stock up on supplies, which is reasonable unless they completely plunder the supermarkets. Otherwise, it's all wait-and-see over here. Of course it doesn't help that Europe is also in the midst of flu season...

dlwdlw 7y ago

The authoritarianism is a red herring IMO. The real issue is economic incentives trumping everything else. For example in Japan if you test positive the hospital gets quarantined losing tons of money. In the US, you can end up payong huge medical bills. The fear is the same. The lesson from WW2 should have been that people are all the same when pushed to extremes. This includes the people who make up the communist party leadership in China and every moral philosoher in the west as well. My armchair belief is that China has ended up absorbing at a global scale, all of capitalism’s externalities. It is an integral part of the world that gives us many things we take for granted like cheap iphones and many others. We do NOT have the convenience to look away and scapegoat one aspect without taking into consideration the whole. This ended up kinda ranty but every time coronavirus is used to bring up something whose purpose is to draw an “us vs them” line between the world and China I want to throw something.

calf 7y ago
I often think to the fable of Armus in ST:TNG, an advanced civilization achieved transcendence, but they left behind the black tar creature that gained sentience and represented all of their evils.
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  +1 I am not sure why, but your comment is the best thing I have read this morning. A couple of my friends kid me about it, but I meditate almost every day for world peace and the reduction of suffering in the world. It can’t hurt and it makes me feel more connected to the world at large. I live in a small town, volunteering at the local food bank is one of my favorite activities, but I tend to think too much about just local life. I have a difficult time getting too excited about national/global politics, etc. Meditation on peace is the most effort I put into the global situation.
jonplackett 7y ago
This is a thoughtful comment. Don’t see why it’s getting downvoted.

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago

> those same authoritarian governments are the ones who played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistle-blowers, and refused to let international experts in. I'm scared that it will become a lot worse than that. The pandemic gives them a real-life stress test and lessons to harden the surveillance state and further improve technical controls and tweak the technology to become more effective. It's another step on the road to integrating and normalizing intrusive and outrageous ideas for government to retain control. (-> both in China and the West!) From the videos I watched from Chinese pigs (aka LE) in uniforms beating old people not wearing a mask and welding the doors shut of giant apartment blocks where people live like ants (or slaves), I tell myself this will not happen in the West. Then I look at our current research and Europe's own ambition to create a central biometrics database (along with tweets from the UK LE which ask you to report anything people see online that may look like terror and all I think is "STASI!" neighborhood watch. These days I see a uniform and my first reaction is disgust mixed with fear, the sort of claustrophobic feeling normally only Orwell brings up in me. I get that quarantine laws (locking people in their homes, issuing a curfew, rations etc) can be harsh but important to combat a deadly problem. But looking at the authorities in charge in the West I wouldn't trust them for a second and think it's also a play with fire. There are lots of edge-cases everywhere for this to be a massive human rights violation (elderly care facilities, prisons, migrants, the homeless, and more power to the rigged justice systems and corrupt EU institutions and generally everyone already wielding lots of power) The CDC and WHO have utterly failed. Why are there no hand-outs of free face-masks and other PPE - oh because there are no stocks! - instead the problem is downplayed (by both WHO and the dear leaders). Why is there no transparency (constant news) about how many people an individual country is testing? Oh because we don't have adequate testing right now. Instead medical professionals were arguing on France24 yesterday whether the game between Juventus/Lyon should go ahead and they felt that they're not qualified to make a statement on a complex subject like this. Instead Italy and other countries are reminding us not to press the panic button just yet and media should be "more responsible in their reporting".

stef25 7y ago
What would have to take place for you to stop thinking this virus is going to push the entire world over the edge and fully in to 1984? CDC and WHO are probably not perfect but saying they "utterly failed" because you're angry over not getting a free face mask is a bit disrespectful toward the many people their working their asses off in times like these.

lawn 7y ago

Chernobyl comes to mind as another example of this.

ajross 7y ago
I think that's apt. Authoritarian governments are environments least able to prevent novel problems and least able to react to them with agility, but best able to coordinate state-scale responses. But in this case we'll see. China's problems don't end if they successfully contain the outbreak to Wuhan. Eventually everyone else will get sick too and re-infect the chinese via other roads.

lmilcin 7y ago

That's exactly my thought. Giving medal for dealing with the problem forgetting who let that problem get large in the first place. The time when Chinese doctors screamed there is something wrong but instead being helped were downplayed or even threatened would be enough to prevent it from snowballing it to the size we face today.

qzx_pierri 7y ago

> When it does, just remember that those same authoritarian governments are the ones who played down the threat, lied, covered up to save face, imprisoned whistleblowers, and refused to let international experts in. This doesn’t address the commenter’s claim that China did the best job of completely shutting their infrastructure down and quarantining the virus effectively. They did make their bed, but they also laid in it as well.

CogitoCogito 7y ago
The OP said "I think when this all comes to an end, China will be one of the countries that dealt with the virus the best." Had they dealt with it better initially, the might never have needed such draconian actions. "They made their bed" implies they did _not_ deal with it well at least initially.

infinity0 7y ago

The recent explosion in cases in South Korea, Italy and Iran would seem to suggest that in fact perhaps the officials in Wuhan did not fuck up handling the early part of the epidemic, at least much more so that the officials in these other countries. There are some indications of officials playing down the threat and lying, but this was also reversed quickly by higher levels of the same authoritarian government. Did this lying have a significant impact, more so than presumably-less lying in South Korea and Italy, that resulted in the same order-of-magnitude in explosion of cases, even though the world media was already on high alert? Don't be so overconfident at fitting world events and a few selected media stories into your prejudicial ideological convictions.

rustymonday 7y ago
I don't know how you could conclude they did not fuck up when they imprisoned doctors who blew the whistle on the outbreak. That's not to say other countries will fare much better. But China had by far the best chance at containment, and they blew it. And the rest of the world has to deal with the fallout.
- infinity0 7y ago
  > I don't know how you could conclude they did not fuck up I explained in my comment - the sudden increase in cases in Wuhan in January, was not that much worse that what we're seeing in S Korea, Iran and Italy right now. These latter countries are also less dense than Wuhan, and also had plenty of warning time. Nobody was imprisoned in Italy, yet despite that we still have several hundred cases today. This suggests that this single imprisonment didn't have a huge effect on the epidemic in Wuhan. > by far the best chance at containment What does it mean to have a "chance" at containment, and what makes one "chance" "better" than another "chance"?? > the rest of the world has to deal with the fallout If you acknowledge there's a possibility that no "other countries will fare much better", why maintain such an accusatory tone? No government can control where an epidemic starts. By your logic, if the epidemic had started in the US, the government would be at fault if it prevented the epidemic from spreading to any other countries? Is that what you're saying? That's an extremely high bar, probably unrealistic.

samstave 7y ago

And welded people into their apartments so they couldnt leave no matter what, regardless of if they had it or not.

jstewartmobile 7y ago

considering the strong rumors that this is an engineered biological warfare agent escaped from the lab, authoritarianism still isn't looking so hot right now.

tebuevd 7y ago

I take it all back. We (the US) are not any better.