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.
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.
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.
There's a bit of a description there about why this approach is different.
Work on SARS resulted in cadidate vaccines, but was abonded before human trials because of succsefull containment.
Work on MERS resulted in a vaccine that is currently showing succsess in humans.
Work on SARS-COVID-2 is starting from those, and already has canditate vaccines based on modifying ones we know showed signs of success against other corona virus.
Maybe this will turn out to be another HIV, where a virus proves ellusive, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that.
Here is the other thing with Italy: differently from other neighbor countries, they have been testing people without symptoms.
Numbers: until February the 24th, Italy performed ~8500 tests (mostly on people without symptoms, but that were in contact with confirmed SARS-CoV-2-infected patients), while UK did ~6500 (focused on people with influenza-like symptoms), Germany ~1000 and France ~500.
This is better from a safety point of view (you get to discover all problematic patients earlier and you can quarantine them before they spread the infection even more). But is makes "your stats look worse" (cit. The wire) because now you look like the epicenter of the infection.
Guess what? The testing method has now been changed ("aligned") to what the other countries are doing, so that the numbers do not look that much worse.
Source: https://www.ilpost.it/2020/02/25/tamponi-coronavirus-italia-...
How is this relevant? For all we know, they might have only tested 200 people by 22nd, when the panic (quarantine, news) first started.
Sigh, this is so cliché… I don't know where you're from, but the “west” as the unified entity you describe doesn't exist. When it comes to authority and how people comply with the rules, France and Germany are more different than China and the US.
How so?
> in England, everything which is not forbidden is allowed, in France, everything is allowed even if it is forbidden
Can speak of Hamburg for about 15 years now, and since maybe about 10 years i have the feeling that at least 50% of traffic participants are absolutely insane, again no matter which mode.
This is a different matter, people will comply for their own safety. If goverments or other agencies send the right message things could be okay imo.
Isn't slowing it the best we can hope for? I mean, I'd rather the pandemic slowly take its course so that there's maximum chance a ventilator will be available if I need one when I get it in six months time. If everyone gets it on the same day.....
No, they do not. Chinas propaganda machine just tells you they do. That is why china- even with all its measures couldnt clamp down. Behind the waver thin authoritarian theater presented lurks the same chaos as in africa and india.
this is immensely racist btw
If containment slows the virus then it might be wise to slow the virus if any of the following is true:
1. You expect to develop some treatment for it.
2. You think a slowly growing group of infected will allow you to study the infected and possibly discover a treatment (related to 1 but not exactly the same)
3. The virus is not expected to be a problem in the summer.
4. A slowly spreading virus means that you can better ramp up your facilities to take care of the infected. (related to 1 and 2)
<sarc />I guess that's how we in the USA managed to reject the TSA full-body scanners and pat-downs.
It seems to me that most of us complained a lot, the government ignored us, and we knuckled under and complied.
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.
So what country gave China info from the start? Japan and SK had a lot more info with regard to the disease (human to human transmission, asymptotic transmission, 14 days incubation period, hell even the RNA sequence was done on the virus) than what China had at the beginning.
Having more info once contaminated people got reported doesn't change the fact that weeks went by with potential carriers spreading everywhere unchecked.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/26/the-re...
The situation for other countries is completely different. Someone could fly into Japan right now from anywhere in the world carrying the contagion at any time. It was brought into Japan by multiple carriers at different times and different places. You can contain one incoming source, and three more will spring up. It's a completely different problem.
Why do you think it comes from Koltsovo, in Russia?
Why are conspiracy theories so irresistible to so many people?
He tells you that he knows people in the chines government and other stuff.
You know what the problem here is? You just don't know who is posting.
There's also evidence that people with lower levels of schooling particularly like conspiracy because it allows them to make sense of a chaotic world. Instead of feeling powerless and hopeless, they have a truth not even the smart and powerful have.
It is of course not true, but therein lies the appeal.
Koltsevo-Harbin route was used regularly by tourists.
What?
The great circle distance between Koltsovo Airport (USSS) and Wuhan Tianhe International Airport (ZHHH) is 5000km:
* http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?&DU=km&P=USSS-ZHHH
And here I thought you were serious... until I looked at a map.
>Will the governments ban conventions? Close restaurants and bars? Shut down shopping malls?
So Yes.
I'd guess the UK government have told them not to report quarantine in order to keep the UK population calmer.
You are poorly informed. The Italian government did precisely that this weekend.
This will be hard for the average person to understand, and people think much more critically in the West.
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...
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.
From what I've seen, the majority of the people anywhere don't think very critically.
I'm not sure if you just haven't heard of these things or if you're intentionally ignoring them to make a point.
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> [..] 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).
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...
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.