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As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could

As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. Why on Earth is this a good model? Undoubtedly for the safety of citizens, but even with all the people shouting about a "fascist revolution" going on with the previous government, it only took three orders to strip everyone of most of their freedoms without anyone batting an eye (especially since no one knows for how long, the April 3rd date is a joke). Quarantining is probably inevitable (although it won't help the overloaded ICUs until two weeks from now, so more capacity will always be needed), but following rules in place in an outbreak does not mean one should not question their principles. And this letter should be sent to the media and the government, since both can't even understand an exponential, or basic statistics (even with the so-called "peak" reached, cases will keep on increasing until recoveries are due). Personally I'd like fast-tracking of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs instead (those are the ones which will get out of this mess, quarantining is just flattening the curve, although immensely beneficial), along with setting up place for non-intensive care COVID-19 patients. Every ICU bed freed is a victory.

incompatible 7y ago
"China could afford to take the economical hit" The faster and better that you deal with it, the smaller the economic hit is going to be. China is going to be the big winner here.
- greedo 7y ago
  Although China has a large internal market, they still rely on exports. If those are curtailed due to slackening demand, quarantine and tariffs, how do they become the "big winner?"
  - incompatible 7y ago
    Well, smaller loser than they would have been if they'd allowed the virus to spread unchecked.
- malandrew 7y ago
  Maybe not. You want a society to develop herd immunity for a flu-like disease during warmer weather months. Since they failed to contain it, the disease is just going to show up in China again but this time from sick people traveling to China. The worst case scenario is lockdown during warmer months and then having it flare up again in winter months. That said, we could just apply medical quarantine procedures used for animals to humans. Get a lab test 48 hours prior to international travel and have an additional test performed upon landing at the destination. The first test minimizes the likelihood of someone with viral shedding traveling and the lab test upon landing let’s you get the person and isolate them immediately before they’ve shed virally.
  - incompatible 7y ago
    Even if it's not contained world-wide, there's still the chance that a vaccine can be developed to provide the immunity later.
- jopsen 7y ago
  I don't see any reason to think that China can better handle the economic hit. China has more poor people than Italy, it stands to reason they are less well equipped to handle an economic down turn.
- sdkaufman 7y ago
  This. The economy is going to be hit either way, it's just a choice between A) a lock down but most people staying alive and healthy or B) lots of people dying or sick and an overrun health care system. Maybe we don't know which one will have bigger impact on the economy, but we know for sure which one will lead to more human suffering.
- pmontra 7y ago
  Especially because they are in the position to help other countries now, when everybody else have to think only about their own citizens. They sent doctors to Italy with medical equipment (Italy sent some help to China earlier on) so they're going to take some credit for the recovery. Then there will be the real recovery. Western Europe was rebuilt with US money after WW2 and the USA consolidated an hegemony which is still lasting now. I bet that China will be more than willing to help in the next years.
  - lmz 7y ago
    Maybe China will emerge as the winner because they kept the number of victims down, just like the US emerged as the winner of WW2 after its industry was spared destruction by bombing.
    - pmontra 7y ago
      Seconded, but the USA also had the will to push their hand. They could have said goodbye and went back to the Americas, instead they did their best to control the world. Of course everybody in that position would have done the same but they had a competitor (the USSR) so it didn't come for free.
tuna-piano 7y ago
Just like China, there was a time when Italy had 1 case, then 2 cases, then 4, etc. Italy was unable to stop the spread before reaching a huge level and spreading to other countries. Why blame China for "allowing this virus to spread all around the world" when Italy allowed the same? (Italy even had a warning that it was coming!)
- mistermann 7y ago
  If it did indeed come from live animals in a wet market, that seems like a potential valid reason for some criticism, although the they did a superb job adapting imho.
- mjoin 7y ago
  you're missing that China initially suppressed info abt this virus, which caused it to spread. had they reacted immediately, we might be in a much better situation rn
  - LeoNatan25 7y ago
    Yes, and so could many countries, including Italy. This is the deal we've been had, and need to look to the future.
  - jbay808 7y ago
    That's a very important point if we're discussing the upsides and downsides of censorship, or whether China is a bad country and should feel bad about itself. But if we're looking for an example of how to solve the pandemic, when people point to China as an example, they aren't saying "we should spend a few weeks pretending the virus doesn't exist, threaten doctors who talk about it, order our labs not to study it, and THEN take decisive action". They're saying we should do the stuff that China did, starting from the decisive action part.
    - kisna72 7y ago
      exactly. I don't understand why people are so eager to assign blame when in reality every one would be better of taking the good parts of what China did.
ComputerGuru 7y ago
You can’t fast track things past what they’ve already been fast tracked. Stop second guessing the experts. What is the use of a hurried vaccine tomorrow if next month it turns out to cause birth defects or global infertility or cancer.
- deleted 7y ago
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- lbeltrame 7y ago
  > You can’t fast track things past what they’ve already been fast tracked. Stop second guessing the experts I'm well aware of how trials work (I happen to work in a scientific institution which does plenty). They may have been fast-tracked elsewhere, but not in my country. So far there's just compassionate use, which means they're administered only to people who have truly severe sympthoms. A vaccine can wait, to be honest, it's not as critical as a treatment to lessen the sympthoms. In fact, that's why Gilead is also testing their drug here (not sure when the actual protocols will start, though). Note that I'm not advocating for "let's scrap all the trials stuff". But trials in phase III have, for obvious reasons, very lengthy time frames. And it's not the first time (I attended a talk a few years ago on the topic) where the system (which works, normally) shows its limits (not only emergencies, but for example orphan drugs).
- mrfusion 7y ago
  I’m sure there’s still a ton of bureaucracy. We need to go back to first principles and really look at what makes a drug safe and how quickly we can find out. And also take a look at what safeguards we are willing to cut when every day of delay is thousands of deaths.
- mrfusion 7y ago
  Birth defects and infertility aren’t issues for most of these patients.
  - ComputerGuru 7y ago
    You don’t vaccinate patients, you treat them. Everyone else gets the vaccine. These are absolutely concerns for the people that would be vaccinated.
deleted 7y ago
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zozbot234 7y ago
> As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. China dropped the ball for a full 10 days back when the disease was nicely contained to a small part of Wuhan, and then largely to Wuhan itself and Hubei - they didn't let the population know about the danger, so for quite some time no one was thinking about protecting themselves by wearing masks, social distancing etc. But the trouble is, Italy then made the exact same mistake by being late with containment measures, and now the UK and US are doing the same. So there's nothing to roll one's eyes or raise eyebrows about.
- deleted 7y ago
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- scarmig 7y ago
  The full danger was unknown in the initial stages. Provincial officials were downplaying it for various reasons, and until the very end of December it wasn't known to even transmit person-to-person. Once the threat was clear, the government of China acted much more alacrity and decisiveness than any Western country, which have had months of advance notice.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    "The very end of December" was 20+ days prior to the Wuhan lockdown, which was was essentially the only instance where China officially acknowledged the disease - before then, the local government was having police caution their doctors and scientists not to talk or "spread untrue rumors" about it. In the meantime, people in Wuhan and elsewhere were just hanging out as usual with no social distancing behaviors whatsoever. Not even wearing protective masks, which is a common habit there unlike the West.
    - coliveira 7y ago
      People are very quick to blame Chinese officials, but I think they were correct in avoiding panic before knowing for sure the true dimensions of the problem they had at hand. The government has its credibility at stake: if you start using harsh measures without evidence, you lose credibility for the next time it is really needed.
rumanator 7y ago
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. That's not alarming. What's alarming is that the Chinese regime admitted that the people who they placed in charge of the crisis response have been continuously lying and falsely reporting the real amount of victims and how far the disease has spread. They've done it jus prior of replacing them, but the Chinese regime just replaced them with loyalist party officials, which makes it sound like a desperate attempt to keep falsifying reports.
crazygringo 7y ago
> Why on Earth is this a good model? Pretty much all countries have mechanisms for emergency powers. China being authoritarian has nothing to do with it. I'm not familiar with Italy's constitution or laws, but I assume it has similar provisions? > Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. Huh? On the one hand you're arguing China was too draconian (and Italy shouldn't copy), then a sentence later you're complaining it wasn't enough and this is all China's fault? What exactly do you suggest China ought to have done to prevent it from spreading outside of China? I haven't heard any reputable source suggest there was any practical way of containing it perfectly. Your comment comes across as knee-jerk anti-China rather than anything based in science or public policy.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > I haven't heard any reputable source suggest there was any practical way of containing it perfectly. Of course there was. If they somehow magically divined the true danger of the virus the day they identified it. But they didn't, it took time and observation, and they shut down the affected areas as soon as the extent of danger was realized and processed by their bureaucracy. There's plenty of things here that could've been done better, but it's asinine to blame them for the virus taking hold everywhere else. Doubly so given that most of the world had a month+ warning before they registered their first cases.
  - sfj 7y ago
    >> processed by their bureaucracy That is the issue here. They completely ignored it until people were dying in the hallways of hospitals and then implemented a draconian policy. And now they're locking up anyone who criticizes them. See this article about "Gratitude education", a term that tops Orwell in its dystopian implications: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/gratitude-education-wuhan-boss-faces-backlash-over-calls-to-thank-leaders https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/gratitude-educ...
    - listsfrin 7y ago
jsjddbbwj 7y ago
It is a good model because it works. The end justifies the means. You can't argue with the results.
gameswithgo 7y ago
>Why on Earth is this a good model? While a state like China would be a bad idea, here in America we could perhaps learn the benefits of not heading too far in the opposite direction.
jennyyang 7y ago
Drugs are not a solution in the next 2-3 months. There's no way a drug can be tested and ensure safe and scaled up to the tens/hundreds of millions of doses you would need. It's impossible so don't even bother considering it. Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. There's no other solution we have as a society to slow down the pace of infections. People who normally wouldn't die will die because of the lack of medical care. The problem we face in the US is lack of testing, which makes it impossible to do anything except a quarantine.
- lbeltrame 7y ago
  > Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. The question is, for how long? Until the infection curve goes down? Until there is not a single infected cases in the whole country? While you can't know when this will happen (especially the former, most models are inaccurate because too little is still known about this virus), I don't believe it is sustainable to keep an extended lockdown on a whole country (as opposed to "just" Hubei, which however has almost the entire population of Italy) more than a few months.
  - kadoban 7y ago
    The purpose now of social distancing and quarantine is to spread out the infections so that the hospitals are not overrun by everyone being sick at once. A significant proportion of infected need hospitalization to survive. If we all get sick at once, there simply aren't enough hospital beds to go around, not to mention other supplies. If the hospitals go far beyond capacity, the fatality rate will be _far_ higher than otherwise. As to how long, I haven't seen good models. In the US we don't have very good data either, because we're testing basically noone.
    - lbeltrame 7y ago
      The press reports several models which say between next week and the end of April for the so called "peak" (I don't think the press understands what it means, however), but at least to me they're useless because the confidence intervals are not given (I can't expect a newspaper to do so, but providing a source to consult in such cases would be beneficial). Some of these models are also different in nature, which adds to the uncertainty: some are epidemiological models, some are economical (used to evaluate the impact of the measures on the long term). Lastly, a lot of qualified people speak and try to give estimates. I'd love if they don't, because currently the best answer is "we do not know yet". That said, I think that going over two months of lockdown will be probably ruinous for the country as whole.
goodcjw2 7y ago
First thing first, this is science, not politics. Everyone wants a drug and vaccine, but good science takes time to happen. Make no mistake, no one wants a lock down, but so far, it's the only option in the lack of a functional medical solution. If tons of scientists tell us lock down is the only option for now, we should'd listen rather than discredit them. Now, if someone really wants to move on to talk about politics. It's about a nation as a whole can do the right thing, not about authoritarian vs. democracy. A ideal democracy society works because we trust reasonable individuals can collectively make the right decision. In this COVID-19 case, lock the hell down and do the best practice to stop it from spreading. I don't see why a functional democracy nation can't do that. But it has to be a functional one. Unfortunately, authoritarian was necessary when the general population (including local governments at various level) cannot function as well. China for example, has to reply on THE ONE in the center to make the right call and execute order top down to be functional. At least according to the CCP, the general population cannot be trusted. Thus the authoritarian regime. It's easy to see it's effectiveness when there is the right order in place. But it's also equally easy to neglect the fact that such an order takes really long (from Dec 2019 to end of Jan) to materialize. IMHO, I think both Italy and China failed here, while we are all ignoring the one did really well, at least so far, Japan. (Or maybe Taiwan and Singapore, but they are small states which is easier to govern).
- lbeltrame 7y ago
  I wouldn't view it as science vs politics. Science advises, correctly, the politicians. But the ultimate decision stays (for the good, or bad) with politics, because they have to balance things. As I said elsewhere, a vaccine is likely less "important" in the immediate, especially because it can have far deeper side effects, and no test has been done on humans whatsoever, while most of the drugs are on Phase III (earliest data should arrive in April, at least for the studies I looked up). Lock downs will help. But they will help in the future. They won't help the overloaded ICUs now, because they're getting now people who had been infected up to 14 days before. In case of no drugs, the alternative is getting makeshift hospitals in place to lessen the burden on the health system, and procure more equipment. However, just as the government was extremely fast in getting people locked in their homes, it was not for these things. > It's about a nation as a whole can do the right thing, not about authoritarian vs. democracy. It's hard to tell when the same government gives contradictory or confused statements. Some blamed "the ignorant masses" for the panic fleeing last Sunday, but in my view, people weren't just well equipped to understand (plus the early leak of the document) what was going on. The media also cherry picks the bad apples very well.
jacquesm 7y ago
China's initial response was terrible. When they realized what they had on hand and how fast it was developing they did what they could to turn it around. That said, I would take any numbers coming out of China with a very large grain of salt; Italy looks way worse than China going by the numbers but I'd trust the Italian numbers more. Also: it is much better to go by deaths and critical cases than it is to go by the number of cases themselves. The deaths and the critical cases are a lot harder to hide.
csomar 7y ago
> Why on Earth is this a good model? It's not but I guess it's the best they have right now. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore are still functioning and have "contained" the virus. The number of cases/deaths did not explode despite contracting the virus much earlier.
- datastoat 7y ago
  It's good you put "contained" in quotes. Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are all (according to this plot [0]) showing exponential growth in the number of cases. It's a slower exponential than elsewhere, but it's still an exponential. [0] https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.ft.com%2Fthe-world%2Ffiles%2F2020%2F03%2Ftrajectory-mar14.png?fit=scale-down&source=next&width=700 https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt...
  - Twixes 7y ago
    Well, that's how these graphs tend to look like for a while for infectious diseases. All we can do at this point is reduce the growth factor so that doctors don't have to choose who gets to use lifesaving machinery and who dies like in Italy.
nullc 7y ago
> As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, You know what is MUCH more effective than an authoritarian response? An _earlier response_. An earlier response, even if it weaker, is much more potent than a stronger later response. The intensity of china's response would not be necessary where the response is faster. > but following rules in place in an outbreak does not mean one should not question their principles. The best way to preserve civil rights and not have to bend them to protect against loss of life is to respond as early as you can reasonable justify. In the US the fact that our principles (and laws!) tie our hands somewhat is all the more reason that it's important that we act aggressively within the space that our society allows. > Personally I'd like fast-tracking of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs instead Responding earlier keeps people alive longer for those drugs to become available.
- fma 7y ago
  Agreed. And where is Trump's response? We don't even have enough testing kits. We had 2 months to ramp things up.
  - tomp 7y ago
    At least he closed the borders. Russia as well. EU can't even do that.
    - dhosek 7y ago
      He did it in an ineffective way. US nationals were returning from the EU without any screening. And it was way too late. All a bunch of xenophobia theater.
      - nullc 7y ago
        Though I agree with your criticism in broad strokes, this is also a numbers game. If it reduced the number of infected people entering then it was useful. It doesn't have to completely eliminate it to be worth doing. There are legal and logistical challenges in preventing US residents from entering or imposing quarantine. Would strong or (more importantly) earlier responses have been good? Absolutely! But a weak and late response is much better than an even later response (even if the later response is stronger). By the numbers we should prefer a non-US-resident ban-- even without screening/quarantine-- on day 20 than a everyone-ban on day 40.
theseadroid 7y ago
> could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. I don't understand this logic. Because China made a mess at the beginning of the pandemic, so we shouldn't copy the model they employed at later stage that is proven to be working? Or because China is an authoritarian state, so everything it does is bad and nothing we can learn from them? Well China has been copying and learning from any countries for a while now and that's what makes it stronger by day. Just keep blaming China and do nothing. That will surely make China less powerful and less influential. You know what's scary? All major democracies failed to manage the pandemic while China becomes the most powerful country after all this.
- theseadroid 7y ago
  Nah scratch that. At this point it's hard to tell who are the baddies[1]. 1. https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1879190/us-germany-battle-for-virus-vaccine-surpremacy https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1879190/us-germany-battle-...
hatenberg 7y ago
Really. I mean sure - they dropped the ball on a new virus emerging from a familiar situation and getting blindsided by incompetent and image obsessed party officials who silenced the alarms and it took a while for the highly concentrated power structure of blindly loyal party officials to pivot and move. However ... It was not an unknown anymore for Europe There was months of warning time There is no suppression of scientific at scale There was daily warnings from WHO and many countries There was precedent for effective measures from Asia There is no no no reason this should happen in a western democracy right. And lets not even look at the US where image obsessed national officials with highly concentrated power and blind loyal party following have been actively downplaying (flu), suppressing the national response and hampering testing and effective containment. It's like China in reverse - the stupid version playing out right in front of our eyes. We all here love to repeat the virtues of western democracy over the autocratic China but right now we need to take a really good look at how much the theoretical ideals have been replaced by practices that combine the worst of both systems to absolutely devastating results. If we don't want a major collapse down the road from all the other wait-and-see known threats, from antibiotic resistance to resource exhaustion to broken pension systems to climate change, we better start thinking about how we get of the 'reality is what we want it to be as long as we vote for people who tell us what we want to hear and cast out people who tell us what we need to act upon' train. Darwin is about survival of the most adaptable to an ever changing world, not necessarily the strongest and right now China looks a lot more adaptable than we do- so if we like our values and system we better start making sacrifices to the gods of science and reality again. That however would require us to even admit there is a problem and it's not looking promising
dmix 7y ago
Far more importantly IMO is the Chinese gov not shutting down live wildlife markets earlier, stopping dangerous non-scientific medicinal use, and enforcing trafficking of known-carriers. Specifically with COVID-19, the trade of Pangolins which are the "most trafficked animal in the world", which largely end up in China and Vietnam often via other SEA countries: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/coronavirus-china-pangolins.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/coronavirus-china... Xi was aggressive shutting stuff down but then went on to praise Chinese medicine (basically Naturopathy) multiple times after the Coronavirus became apparent. Which is where the quack medicine that results in people grinding up Pangolin scales and taking them like medicine, then eating the meat. Not to mention having markets with live wildlife in unsanitary areas in the middle of major urban areas with high density. I'm surprised the continued spread of woo by Chinese authorities isn't taking more of a beating. Not just doing nothing, but promoting it. Even the recent wildlife market "ban" has a giant loophole: > The coronavirus epidemic prompted China to permanently ban trade of wild animals as food, but not for medicinal use. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/science/coronavirus-pangolin-wildlife-ban-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/science/coronavirus-pango...
hrerwer342343 7y ago
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. Stop with the FUD dude. The CCPs may indeed be despicable, but as the 'righteous' Europe and its 'heaven born' bureaucrats have adequately demonstrated, this is entirely a human trait, and unrelated to 'communist' or 'Chinese' (gasp!) values.
arendtio 7y ago
Maybe they should include this 3Blue1Brown video to explain what 'exponential' means in this context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg
sdkaufman 7y ago
> Why on Earth is this a good model? Because it worked. Millions of lives have been saved - 1% of 1.3B is 13M people. That's 1/5 of Italy. Are there better models? Maybe. But there are also much worse models, as I suspect we might soon find out in the US [1]. Personally I'd much rather take the Chinese model for the next few months than risk me and my family dying or going bankrupt over the next few months. And, instead of thinking that China could "afford to take the economical hit", consider the economic impact of 13M people suddenly dying. At this point, there's definitely going to be a hit to the economy. It's just going to be either A) from stricter lock downs and government aid, or B) from more people dying due to overrun hospitals. It might not be a wash in terms of the dollar amount, but it's clear which option will save more lives. [1] Comparing China and US response: - China has made treatment (not just testing) for coronavirus free for everyone. In the US...better hope you have good insurance. - Tests performed per million people: China 2,800, US 5 - China is ordering banks to increase loans to SMBs rather than hoarding cash to protect themselves. It has rolled out a bunch of policies to support SMBs and employees. The US...well, not much so far. Sources: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-many-coronavirus-tests-per-capita-have-been-completed https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-many-coronavirus-tes... https://qz.com/1813181/china-is-taking-pleasure-in-us-mishandling-of-coronavirus/ https://qz.com/1813181/china-is-taking-pleasure-in-us-mishan... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3052474/coronavirus-china-grants-banks-extra-funding-spur-loans-hard https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3052474/c... https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-latest-regional-measures-to-support-smes-during-coronavirus-outbreak/ https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-latest-regional-m...
- antpls 7y ago
  > Because it worked. Millions of lives have been saved - 1% of 1.3B is 13M people. That's 1/5 of Italy. This is an inacurrate estimation. I guess your figure of 1% is from South Korea case fatality rate. The confirmed cases represent a biased sample of the population, and the mortality rate could be lower in reality (but not higher). > consider the economic impact of 13M people suddenly dying. The mortality is mainly for 70+ years old people, who are already not in the workforce anymore. Those numbers cannot help us to evaluate or to compare one state's measure versus another state's decision
enitihas 7y ago
China did handle the situation poorly in the beginning, trying to suppress the numbers maybe. But the thing is, other countries are doing the same mistake, while not being prepared to do what China did next. Trump said there is nothing to worry about. He even compared the numbers to flu numbers. This is similar to what the CCP did in the beginning. Wuhan was locked down at 100 new cases a day. This is much faster response than countries who had seen Wuhan and even had better data. The CCP did screw things up in the beginning, but made up for that by a very effective response. Countries are matching CCP on the initial response, but not ready to match the final response.
j7ake 7y ago
There are several non-authoritarian states in Asia that have successfully contained the virus by implementing similar strategies as China. So there is no need to equate the need for an authoritarian government to successfully contain the virus.
iforgotpassword 7y ago
> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. So did Italy, and they even got a head start in knowledge about the virus of about a month. Yet, the majority of cases here in Germany can be traced back to Italy, and not directly to China. It's depressing how every country still tries their best to ignore their own failings and defaults to "well China should have stopped it right in the beginning" I am absolutely sure that things would have been at least as bad if not worse, had this virus originated in Italy. Or Germany, or pretty much anywhere else.
wangii 7y ago
It is a good model not b/c it's politically correct, nor adopted by an authoritarian state, it's good simply because it worked: brought over 3000 new cases everyday in Wuhan down to single digit in recent days. Any government or organization is problematic if it puts 'principles' over human lives.
ezVoodoo 7y ago
What caused this whole mess was the nature, not the Chinese party/people. In the first few weeks of the virus transmission in China, nobody can anticipate the lethality of the coronavirus. People may think it is just another flu. Who knows? Yes, there were delays in the reporting and yes it could have been handled better. But the following actions of China were swift and determined. The fact is the coronavirus has been contained in China. The cases reported in China are single digit today. Fact shows China's model is effective, no? You think the governments in EU or US could have done a better job if the coronavirus first appeared there? I'd say no. Why? Because the EU and USA have all the data and information about the coronavirus shared by China for months. You have witnessed all the mess caused by the virus in China for months and so what? Trump was down playing the danger of COVID-19 just a few days ago. The USA cannot even cover a fraction of its citizens for testing the virus. We know it seemed to be a god sent opportunity to point fingers to the "authoritarian" system of China at this moment. But guess what? The coronavirus does not slow itself down regardless you are a democracy or not. Prove your system/model is better by saving the lives of your own citizens instead of bashing China, will you? PS. we still don't know from where/what the coronavirus come from. I suggest wait for scientific proof before jumping to the conclusion that it started from China. last time I checked, the Spanish Flu did not originate from Spain.
tomohawk 7y ago
China didn't just drop the ball, they literally went after anyone who tried to tell them there was a ball. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/wuhan-doctors-say-colleagues-died-in-vain-amid-official-cover-up https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/wuhan-doctors-sa...
learnstats2 7y ago
Part of the problem here is that people see this as a competition between nations, i.e. arbitrarily defined borders. China has implemented measures that have objectively worked: that have effectively contained an outbreak of this disease within their nation, despite having had the least knowledge and warning, and within a short amount of time. So, this is a good model to follow, in the absence of any other. Certain Western governments appear to have decided to stretch the limits of that model to protect their economy in the short-term. That will potentially result in everyone across the globe suffering further outbreaks. Your assumption that drugs will save us is not safe. Novel drug development may be quick, or it may take decades.
kiba 7y ago
It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. Can we stop using mode of government as an explanation for success and failure? Clearly your country have its head screwed on better than mine. Meanwhile, my president is complacency in chief, more worried about the stock market than lives being lost. The local governments know what they're doing moreso than the feds, when it should be the other way around. South Korea certainly seemed to have its head screwed most on head. They learned from previous lessons and are very successfully in applying them.
- Proven 7y ago
  > Can we stop using mode of government as an explanation for success and failure? No we cannot in cases where mode of gov matters. Free and less regulated countries do better than totalitarian and highly regulated countries. Grandparent comment got it right and his preference for faster approval of drugs and vaccines is simply (all other things being equal) a call for less regulation and smaller role of government. The US is freer in terms of speech and certain property rights, but heavily regulated (nothing to do with Trump) so its degree of freedom is not significantly higher than that of China. It's not the governments job to cure diseases. That should be left to private enterprises and individuals. The government needs to prevent sick people from entering, which Trump has done (albeit a little too late).

incompatible 7y ago

"China could afford to take the economical hit" The faster and better that you deal with it, the smaller the economic hit is going to be. China is going to be the big winner here.

greedo 7y ago
Although China has a large internal market, they still rely on exports. If those are curtailed due to slackening demand, quarantine and tariffs, how do they become the "big winner?"
- incompatible 7y ago
  Well, smaller loser than they would have been if they'd allowed the virus to spread unchecked.
malandrew 7y ago
Maybe not. You want a society to develop herd immunity for a flu-like disease during warmer weather months. Since they failed to contain it, the disease is just going to show up in China again but this time from sick people traveling to China. The worst case scenario is lockdown during warmer months and then having it flare up again in winter months. That said, we could just apply medical quarantine procedures used for animals to humans. Get a lab test 48 hours prior to international travel and have an additional test performed upon landing at the destination. The first test minimizes the likelihood of someone with viral shedding traveling and the lab test upon landing let’s you get the person and isolate them immediately before they’ve shed virally.
- incompatible 7y ago
  Even if it's not contained world-wide, there's still the chance that a vaccine can be developed to provide the immunity later.
jopsen 7y ago
I don't see any reason to think that China can better handle the economic hit. China has more poor people than Italy, it stands to reason they are less well equipped to handle an economic down turn.
sdkaufman 7y ago
This. The economy is going to be hit either way, it's just a choice between A) a lock down but most people staying alive and healthy or B) lots of people dying or sick and an overrun health care system. Maybe we don't know which one will have bigger impact on the economy, but we know for sure which one will lead to more human suffering.
pmontra 7y ago
Especially because they are in the position to help other countries now, when everybody else have to think only about their own citizens. They sent doctors to Italy with medical equipment (Italy sent some help to China earlier on) so they're going to take some credit for the recovery. Then there will be the real recovery. Western Europe was rebuilt with US money after WW2 and the USA consolidated an hegemony which is still lasting now. I bet that China will be more than willing to help in the next years.
- lmz 7y ago
  Maybe China will emerge as the winner because they kept the number of victims down, just like the US emerged as the winner of WW2 after its industry was spared destruction by bombing.
  - pmontra 7y ago
    Seconded, but the USA also had the will to push their hand. They could have said goodbye and went back to the Americas, instead they did their best to control the world. Of course everybody in that position would have done the same but they had a competitor (the USSR) so it didn't come for free.

tuna-piano 7y ago

Just like China, there was a time when Italy had 1 case, then 2 cases, then 4, etc. Italy was unable to stop the spread before reaching a huge level and spreading to other countries. Why blame China for "allowing this virus to spread all around the world" when Italy allowed the same? (Italy even had a warning that it was coming!)

mistermann 7y ago
If it did indeed come from live animals in a wet market, that seems like a potential valid reason for some criticism, although the they did a superb job adapting imho.
mjoin 7y ago
you're missing that China initially suppressed info abt this virus, which caused it to spread. had they reacted immediately, we might be in a much better situation rn
- LeoNatan25 7y ago
  Yes, and so could many countries, including Italy. This is the deal we've been had, and need to look to the future.
- jbay808 7y ago
  That's a very important point if we're discussing the upsides and downsides of censorship, or whether China is a bad country and should feel bad about itself. But if we're looking for an example of how to solve the pandemic, when people point to China as an example, they aren't saying "we should spend a few weeks pretending the virus doesn't exist, threaten doctors who talk about it, order our labs not to study it, and THEN take decisive action". They're saying we should do the stuff that China did, starting from the decisive action part.
  - kisna72 7y ago
    exactly. I don't understand why people are so eager to assign blame when in reality every one would be better of taking the good parts of what China did.

ComputerGuru 7y ago

You can’t fast track things past what they’ve already been fast tracked. Stop second guessing the experts. What is the use of a hurried vaccine tomorrow if next month it turns out to cause birth defects or global infertility or cancer.

deleted 7y ago
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lbeltrame 7y ago
> You can’t fast track things past what they’ve already been fast tracked. Stop second guessing the experts I'm well aware of how trials work (I happen to work in a scientific institution which does plenty). They may have been fast-tracked elsewhere, but not in my country. So far there's just compassionate use, which means they're administered only to people who have truly severe sympthoms. A vaccine can wait, to be honest, it's not as critical as a treatment to lessen the sympthoms. In fact, that's why Gilead is also testing their drug here (not sure when the actual protocols will start, though). Note that I'm not advocating for "let's scrap all the trials stuff". But trials in phase III have, for obvious reasons, very lengthy time frames. And it's not the first time (I attended a talk a few years ago on the topic) where the system (which works, normally) shows its limits (not only emergencies, but for example orphan drugs).
mrfusion 7y ago
I’m sure there’s still a ton of bureaucracy. We need to go back to first principles and really look at what makes a drug safe and how quickly we can find out. And also take a look at what safeguards we are willing to cut when every day of delay is thousands of deaths.
mrfusion 7y ago
Birth defects and infertility aren’t issues for most of these patients.
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  You don’t vaccinate patients, you treat them. Everyone else gets the vaccine. These are absolutely concerns for the people that would be vaccinated.

deleted 7y ago

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zozbot234 7y ago

> As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. China dropped the ball for a full 10 days back when the disease was nicely contained to a small part of Wuhan, and then largely to Wuhan itself and Hubei - they didn't let the population know about the danger, so for quite some time no one was thinking about protecting themselves by wearing masks, social distancing etc. But the trouble is, Italy then made the exact same mistake by being late with containment measures, and now the UK and US are doing the same. So there's nothing to roll one's eyes or raise eyebrows about.

deleted 7y ago
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scarmig 7y ago
The full danger was unknown in the initial stages. Provincial officials were downplaying it for various reasons, and until the very end of December it wasn't known to even transmit person-to-person. Once the threat was clear, the government of China acted much more alacrity and decisiveness than any Western country, which have had months of advance notice.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  "The very end of December" was 20+ days prior to the Wuhan lockdown, which was was essentially the only instance where China officially acknowledged the disease - before then, the local government was having police caution their doctors and scientists not to talk or "spread untrue rumors" about it. In the meantime, people in Wuhan and elsewhere were just hanging out as usual with no social distancing behaviors whatsoever. Not even wearing protective masks, which is a common habit there unlike the West.
  - coliveira 7y ago
    People are very quick to blame Chinese officials, but I think they were correct in avoiding panic before knowing for sure the true dimensions of the problem they had at hand. The government has its credibility at stake: if you start using harsh measures without evidence, you lose credibility for the next time it is really needed.

rumanator 7y ago

> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. That's not alarming. What's alarming is that the Chinese regime admitted that the people who they placed in charge of the crisis response have been continuously lying and falsely reporting the real amount of victims and how far the disease has spread. They've done it jus prior of replacing them, but the Chinese regime just replaced them with loyalist party officials, which makes it sound like a desperate attempt to keep falsifying reports.

crazygringo 7y ago

> Why on Earth is this a good model? Pretty much all countries have mechanisms for emergency powers. China being authoritarian has nothing to do with it. I'm not familiar with Italy's constitution or laws, but I assume it has similar provisions? > Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. Huh? On the one hand you're arguing China was too draconian (and Italy shouldn't copy), then a sentence later you're complaining it wasn't enough and this is all China's fault? What exactly do you suggest China ought to have done to prevent it from spreading outside of China? I haven't heard any reputable source suggest there was any practical way of containing it perfectly. Your comment comes across as knee-jerk anti-China rather than anything based in science or public policy.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> I haven't heard any reputable source suggest there was any practical way of containing it perfectly. Of course there was. If they somehow magically divined the true danger of the virus the day they identified it. But they didn't, it took time and observation, and they shut down the affected areas as soon as the extent of danger was realized and processed by their bureaucracy. There's plenty of things here that could've been done better, but it's asinine to blame them for the virus taking hold everywhere else. Doubly so given that most of the world had a month+ warning before they registered their first cases.
- sfj 7y ago
  >> processed by their bureaucracy That is the issue here. They completely ignored it until people were dying in the hallways of hospitals and then implemented a draconian policy. And now they're locking up anyone who criticizes them. See this article about "Gratitude education", a term that tops Orwell in its dystopian implications: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/gratitude-education-wuhan-boss-faces-backlash-over-calls-to-thank-leaders https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/gratitude-educ...
  - listsfrin 7y ago

jsjddbbwj 7y ago

It is a good model because it works. The end justifies the means. You can't argue with the results.

gameswithgo 7y ago

>Why on Earth is this a good model? While a state like China would be a bad idea, here in America we could perhaps learn the benefits of not heading too far in the opposite direction.

jennyyang 7y ago

Drugs are not a solution in the next 2-3 months. There's no way a drug can be tested and ensure safe and scaled up to the tens/hundreds of millions of doses you would need. It's impossible so don't even bother considering it. Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. There's no other solution we have as a society to slow down the pace of infections. People who normally wouldn't die will die because of the lack of medical care. The problem we face in the US is lack of testing, which makes it impossible to do anything except a quarantine.

lbeltrame 7y ago
> Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. The question is, for how long? Until the infection curve goes down? Until there is not a single infected cases in the whole country? While you can't know when this will happen (especially the former, most models are inaccurate because too little is still known about this virus), I don't believe it is sustainable to keep an extended lockdown on a whole country (as opposed to "just" Hubei, which however has almost the entire population of Italy) more than a few months.
- kadoban 7y ago
  The purpose now of social distancing and quarantine is to spread out the infections so that the hospitals are not overrun by everyone being sick at once. A significant proportion of infected need hospitalization to survive. If we all get sick at once, there simply aren't enough hospital beds to go around, not to mention other supplies. If the hospitals go far beyond capacity, the fatality rate will be _far_ higher than otherwise. As to how long, I haven't seen good models. In the US we don't have very good data either, because we're testing basically noone.
  - lbeltrame 7y ago
    The press reports several models which say between next week and the end of April for the so called "peak" (I don't think the press understands what it means, however), but at least to me they're useless because the confidence intervals are not given (I can't expect a newspaper to do so, but providing a source to consult in such cases would be beneficial). Some of these models are also different in nature, which adds to the uncertainty: some are epidemiological models, some are economical (used to evaluate the impact of the measures on the long term). Lastly, a lot of qualified people speak and try to give estimates. I'd love if they don't, because currently the best answer is "we do not know yet". That said, I think that going over two months of lockdown will be probably ruinous for the country as whole.

goodcjw2 7y ago

First thing first, this is science, not politics. Everyone wants a drug and vaccine, but good science takes time to happen. Make no mistake, no one wants a lock down, but so far, it's the only option in the lack of a functional medical solution. If tons of scientists tell us lock down is the only option for now, we should'd listen rather than discredit them. Now, if someone really wants to move on to talk about politics. It's about a nation as a whole can do the right thing, not about authoritarian vs. democracy. A ideal democracy society works because we trust reasonable individuals can collectively make the right decision. In this COVID-19 case, lock the hell down and do the best practice to stop it from spreading. I don't see why a functional democracy nation can't do that. But it has to be a functional one. Unfortunately, authoritarian was necessary when the general population (including local governments at various level) cannot function as well. China for example, has to reply on THE ONE in the center to make the right call and execute order top down to be functional. At least according to the CCP, the general population cannot be trusted. Thus the authoritarian regime. It's easy to see it's effectiveness when there is the right order in place. But it's also equally easy to neglect the fact that such an order takes really long (from Dec 2019 to end of Jan) to materialize. IMHO, I think both Italy and China failed here, while we are all ignoring the one did really well, at least so far, Japan. (Or maybe Taiwan and Singapore, but they are small states which is easier to govern).

lbeltrame 7y ago
I wouldn't view it as science vs politics. Science advises, correctly, the politicians. But the ultimate decision stays (for the good, or bad) with politics, because they have to balance things. As I said elsewhere, a vaccine is likely less "important" in the immediate, especially because it can have far deeper side effects, and no test has been done on humans whatsoever, while most of the drugs are on Phase III (earliest data should arrive in April, at least for the studies I looked up). Lock downs will help. But they will help in the future. They won't help the overloaded ICUs now, because they're getting now people who had been infected up to 14 days before. In case of no drugs, the alternative is getting makeshift hospitals in place to lessen the burden on the health system, and procure more equipment. However, just as the government was extremely fast in getting people locked in their homes, it was not for these things. > It's about a nation as a whole can do the right thing, not about authoritarian vs. democracy. It's hard to tell when the same government gives contradictory or confused statements. Some blamed "the ignorant masses" for the panic fleeing last Sunday, but in my view, people weren't just well equipped to understand (plus the early leak of the document) what was going on. The media also cherry picks the bad apples very well.

jacquesm 7y ago

China's initial response was terrible. When they realized what they had on hand and how fast it was developing they did what they could to turn it around. That said, I would take any numbers coming out of China with a very large grain of salt; Italy looks way worse than China going by the numbers but I'd trust the Italian numbers more. Also: it is much better to go by deaths and critical cases than it is to go by the number of cases themselves. The deaths and the critical cases are a lot harder to hide.

csomar 7y ago

> Why on Earth is this a good model? It's not but I guess it's the best they have right now. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore are still functioning and have "contained" the virus. The number of cases/deaths did not explode despite contracting the virus much earlier.

datastoat 7y ago
It's good you put "contained" in quotes. Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are all (according to this plot [0]) showing exponential growth in the number of cases. It's a slower exponential than elsewhere, but it's still an exponential. [0] https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.ft.com%2Fthe-world%2Ffiles%2F2020%2F03%2Ftrajectory-mar14.png?fit=scale-down&source=next&width=700 https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt...
- Twixes 7y ago
  Well, that's how these graphs tend to look like for a while for infectious diseases. All we can do at this point is reduce the growth factor so that doctors don't have to choose who gets to use lifesaving machinery and who dies like in Italy.

nullc 7y ago

> As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, You know what is MUCH more effective than an authoritarian response? An _earlier response_. An earlier response, even if it weaker, is much more potent than a stronger later response. The intensity of china's response would not be necessary where the response is faster. > but following rules in place in an outbreak does not mean one should not question their principles. The best way to preserve civil rights and not have to bend them to protect against loss of life is to respond as early as you can reasonable justify. In the US the fact that our principles (and laws!) tie our hands somewhat is all the more reason that it's important that we act aggressively within the space that our society allows. > Personally I'd like fast-tracking of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs instead Responding earlier keeps people alive longer for those drugs to become available.

fma 7y ago
Agreed. And where is Trump's response? We don't even have enough testing kits. We had 2 months to ramp things up.
- tomp 7y ago
  At least he closed the borders. Russia as well. EU can't even do that.
  - dhosek 7y ago
    He did it in an ineffective way. US nationals were returning from the EU without any screening. And it was way too late. All a bunch of xenophobia theater.
    - nullc 7y ago
      Though I agree with your criticism in broad strokes, this is also a numbers game. If it reduced the number of infected people entering then it was useful. It doesn't have to completely eliminate it to be worth doing. There are legal and logistical challenges in preventing US residents from entering or imposing quarantine. Would strong or (more importantly) earlier responses have been good? Absolutely! But a weak and late response is much better than an even later response (even if the later response is stronger). By the numbers we should prefer a non-US-resident ban-- even without screening/quarantine-- on day 20 than a everyone-ban on day 40.

theseadroid 7y ago

> could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. I don't understand this logic. Because China made a mess at the beginning of the pandemic, so we shouldn't copy the model they employed at later stage that is proven to be working? Or because China is an authoritarian state, so everything it does is bad and nothing we can learn from them? Well China has been copying and learning from any countries for a while now and that's what makes it stronger by day. Just keep blaming China and do nothing. That will surely make China less powerful and less influential. You know what's scary? All major democracies failed to manage the pandemic while China becomes the most powerful country after all this.

theseadroid 7y ago
Nah scratch that. At this point it's hard to tell who are the baddies[1]. 1. https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1879190/us-germany-battle-for-virus-vaccine-surpremacy https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1879190/us-germany-battle-...

hatenberg 7y ago

Really. I mean sure - they dropped the ball on a new virus emerging from a familiar situation and getting blindsided by incompetent and image obsessed party officials who silenced the alarms and it took a while for the highly concentrated power structure of blindly loyal party officials to pivot and move. However ... It was not an unknown anymore for Europe There was months of warning time There is no suppression of scientific at scale There was daily warnings from WHO and many countries There was precedent for effective measures from Asia There is no no no reason this should happen in a western democracy right. And lets not even look at the US where image obsessed national officials with highly concentrated power and blind loyal party following have been actively downplaying (flu), suppressing the national response and hampering testing and effective containment. It's like China in reverse - the stupid version playing out right in front of our eyes. We all here love to repeat the virtues of western democracy over the autocratic China but right now we need to take a really good look at how much the theoretical ideals have been replaced by practices that combine the worst of both systems to absolutely devastating results. If we don't want a major collapse down the road from all the other wait-and-see known threats, from antibiotic resistance to resource exhaustion to broken pension systems to climate change, we better start thinking about how we get of the 'reality is what we want it to be as long as we vote for people who tell us what we want to hear and cast out people who tell us what we need to act upon' train. Darwin is about survival of the most adaptable to an ever changing world, not necessarily the strongest and right now China looks a lot more adaptable than we do- so if we like our values and system we better start making sacrifices to the gods of science and reality again. That however would require us to even admit there is a problem and it's not looking promising

dmix 7y ago

Far more importantly IMO is the Chinese gov not shutting down live wildlife markets earlier, stopping dangerous non-scientific medicinal use, and enforcing trafficking of known-carriers. Specifically with COVID-19, the trade of Pangolins which are the "most trafficked animal in the world", which largely end up in China and Vietnam often via other SEA countries: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/coronavirus-china-pangolins.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/coronavirus-china... Xi was aggressive shutting stuff down but then went on to praise Chinese medicine (basically Naturopathy) multiple times after the Coronavirus became apparent. Which is where the quack medicine that results in people grinding up Pangolin scales and taking them like medicine, then eating the meat. Not to mention having markets with live wildlife in unsanitary areas in the middle of major urban areas with high density. I'm surprised the continued spread of woo by Chinese authorities isn't taking more of a beating. Not just doing nothing, but promoting it. Even the recent wildlife market "ban" has a giant loophole: > The coronavirus epidemic prompted China to permanently ban trade of wild animals as food, but not for medicinal use. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/science/coronavirus-pangolin-wildlife-ban-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/science/coronavirus-pango...

hrerwer342343 7y ago

> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. Stop with the FUD dude. The CCPs may indeed be despicable, but as the 'righteous' Europe and its 'heaven born' bureaucrats have adequately demonstrated, this is entirely a human trait, and unrelated to 'communist' or 'Chinese' (gasp!) values.

arendtio 7y ago

Maybe they should include this 3Blue1Brown video to explain what 'exponential' means in this context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg

sdkaufman 7y ago

> Why on Earth is this a good model? Because it worked. Millions of lives have been saved - 1% of 1.3B is 13M people. That's 1/5 of Italy. Are there better models? Maybe. But there are also much worse models, as I suspect we might soon find out in the US [1]. Personally I'd much rather take the Chinese model for the next few months than risk me and my family dying or going bankrupt over the next few months. And, instead of thinking that China could "afford to take the economical hit", consider the economic impact of 13M people suddenly dying. At this point, there's definitely going to be a hit to the economy. It's just going to be either A) from stricter lock downs and government aid, or B) from more people dying due to overrun hospitals. It might not be a wash in terms of the dollar amount, but it's clear which option will save more lives. [1] Comparing China and US response: - China has made treatment (not just testing) for coronavirus free for everyone. In the US...better hope you have good insurance. - Tests performed per million people: China 2,800, US 5 - China is ordering banks to increase loans to SMBs rather than hoarding cash to protect themselves. It has rolled out a bunch of policies to support SMBs and employees. The US...well, not much so far. Sources: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-many-coronavirus-tests-per-capita-have-been-completed https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-many-coronavirus-tes... https://qz.com/1813181/china-is-taking-pleasure-in-us-mishandling-of-coronavirus/ https://qz.com/1813181/china-is-taking-pleasure-in-us-mishan... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3052474/coronavirus-china-grants-banks-extra-funding-spur-loans-hard https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3052474/c... https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-latest-regional-measures-to-support-smes-during-coronavirus-outbreak/ https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-latest-regional-m...

antpls 7y ago
> Because it worked. Millions of lives have been saved - 1% of 1.3B is 13M people. That's 1/5 of Italy. This is an inacurrate estimation. I guess your figure of 1% is from South Korea case fatality rate. The confirmed cases represent a biased sample of the population, and the mortality rate could be lower in reality (but not higher). > consider the economic impact of 13M people suddenly dying. The mortality is mainly for 70+ years old people, who are already not in the workforce anymore. Those numbers cannot help us to evaluate or to compare one state's measure versus another state's decision

enitihas 7y ago

China did handle the situation poorly in the beginning, trying to suppress the numbers maybe. But the thing is, other countries are doing the same mistake, while not being prepared to do what China did next. Trump said there is nothing to worry about. He even compared the numbers to flu numbers. This is similar to what the CCP did in the beginning. Wuhan was locked down at 100 new cases a day. This is much faster response than countries who had seen Wuhan and even had better data. The CCP did screw things up in the beginning, but made up for that by a very effective response. Countries are matching CCP on the initial response, but not ready to match the final response.

j7ake 7y ago

There are several non-authoritarian states in Asia that have successfully contained the virus by implementing similar strategies as China. So there is no need to equate the need for an authoritarian government to successfully contain the virus.

iforgotpassword 7y ago

> Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. So did Italy, and they even got a head start in knowledge about the virus of about a month. Yet, the majority of cases here in Germany can be traced back to Italy, and not directly to China. It's depressing how every country still tries their best to ignore their own failings and defaults to "well China should have stopped it right in the beginning" I am absolutely sure that things would have been at least as bad if not worse, had this virus originated in Italy. Or Germany, or pretty much anywhere else.

wangii 7y ago

It is a good model not b/c it's politically correct, nor adopted by an authoritarian state, it's good simply because it worked: brought over 3000 new cases everyday in Wuhan down to single digit in recent days. Any government or organization is problematic if it puts 'principles' over human lives.

ezVoodoo 7y ago

What caused this whole mess was the nature, not the Chinese party/people. In the first few weeks of the virus transmission in China, nobody can anticipate the lethality of the coronavirus. People may think it is just another flu. Who knows? Yes, there were delays in the reporting and yes it could have been handled better. But the following actions of China were swift and determined. The fact is the coronavirus has been contained in China. The cases reported in China are single digit today. Fact shows China's model is effective, no? You think the governments in EU or US could have done a better job if the coronavirus first appeared there? I'd say no. Why? Because the EU and USA have all the data and information about the coronavirus shared by China for months. You have witnessed all the mess caused by the virus in China for months and so what? Trump was down playing the danger of COVID-19 just a few days ago. The USA cannot even cover a fraction of its citizens for testing the virus. We know it seemed to be a god sent opportunity to point fingers to the "authoritarian" system of China at this moment. But guess what? The coronavirus does not slow itself down regardless you are a democracy or not. Prove your system/model is better by saving the lives of your own citizens instead of bashing China, will you? PS. we still don't know from where/what the coronavirus come from. I suggest wait for scientific proof before jumping to the conclusion that it started from China. last time I checked, the Spanish Flu did not originate from Spain.

tomohawk 7y ago

China didn't just drop the ball, they literally went after anyone who tried to tell them there was a ball. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/wuhan-doctors-say-colleagues-died-in-vain-amid-official-cover-up https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/wuhan-doctors-sa...

learnstats2 7y ago

Part of the problem here is that people see this as a competition between nations, i.e. arbitrarily defined borders. China has implemented measures that have objectively worked: that have effectively contained an outbreak of this disease within their nation, despite having had the least knowledge and warning, and within a short amount of time. So, this is a good model to follow, in the absence of any other. Certain Western governments appear to have decided to stretch the limits of that model to protect their economy in the short-term. That will potentially result in everyone across the globe suffering further outbreaks. Your assumption that drugs will save us is not safe. Novel drug development may be quick, or it may take decades.

kiba 7y ago

It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the world. Can we stop using mode of government as an explanation for success and failure? Clearly your country have its head screwed on better than mine. Meanwhile, my president is complacency in chief, more worried about the stock market than lives being lost. The local governments know what they're doing moreso than the feds, when it should be the other way around. South Korea certainly seemed to have its head screwed most on head. They learned from previous lessons and are very successfully in applying them.

Proven 7y ago
> Can we stop using mode of government as an explanation for success and failure? No we cannot in cases where mode of gov matters. Free and less regulated countries do better than totalitarian and highly regulated countries. Grandparent comment got it right and his preference for faster approval of drugs and vaccines is simply (all other things being equal) a call for less regulation and smaller role of government. The US is freer in terms of speech and certain property rights, but heavily regulated (nothing to do with Trump) so its degree of freedom is not significantly higher than that of China. It's not the governments job to cure diseases. That should be left to private enterprises and individuals. The government needs to prevent sick people from entering, which Trump has done (albeit a little too late).