I find it incredibly hard to believe that China has stopped community spread within the country - I hope I’m wrong, but I think we’re getting PRC propaganda when we hear about “all new cases we’re imported”.
Chinese New Year (equivalent to Christmas / New Year if you are a westerner) was effectively cancelled by the government, and I know that my in-laws at least adhered to this and all their neighbours did as well.
The government were happy to physically dig up roads to contain Wuhan, and people outside Hubei would snitch on people fleeing Hubei so they would be sent back.
My mother in-law has been in isolation since the end of January, solely venturing out to buy supplies. She wears a mask when she leaves, and she immediately showers + disinfects her clothes when she gets home.
This may surprise you, but she is not really in the minority. People in Asia are fairly risk-averse when it comes to contagion, coupled with the history of SARS, the community-level response to COVID-19 has been starkly different.
Separately, a friend living in Shanghai said (during February) that the only people out on streets were expats/foreigners.
But the locals were more individually prepared to comply with guidelines
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/17/u-s-funds-world-health-...
"The coronavirus crisis is raising questions over China's relationship with the World Health Organization"
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/14/asia/coronavirus-who-chin...
"Coronavirus: How WHO Corruption Helped It Spread" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwFTZawOc9k
1)The credibility of the WHO in regards to the CCP.
2)The culpability of CCP in regards to covering up the pandemic which began in territory it controls. Allegedly this outbreak began in November. Doctors who warned about it were arrested.
Your response references a third issue
3)Western officials had sufficient time to formulate a 'better' response
Why should infection data be any different?
The current CCP narrative is that all new cases are imported. Do you find this credible?
Even the satellite measurements NASA shoots? I'd sincerely like to see the tech behind that coverup!
WHO isn't a an omniscient god. They don't have any information that regional authorities don't give them. If Chinese government lies, that's the Chinese government's crime.
People got sick at a fish market in December. It was reported up to government as a potentially novel illness by Dec 31.
A mere 2 weeks later on Jan 14 there was no clear evidence of transmission yet, because viruses take time to transmit and incubate and sicken and get reported to authorities. On Jan 20 Chinese authorities announced human transmission.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/timeline-china-corona...
Even today the vast majority of new cases in my country (Canada) are directly related to international travel. It seems obvious that all of this could have been avoided with earlier border closures.
I blame the WHO for mishandling this pandemic because they were the only international agency that could have coordinated multilateral border closures in a diplomatic way but chose not to in order to make China happy.
Having said this though, being an authoritarian state with constant efforts to have a good image, they might have underreported the numbers of actual cases.
> I hope I’m wrong
Do you really? It seems to me that many who share your sentiments actually want things to get worse both in china and around the world. That's just the feeling I get reading the comments.
Also, it would be interesting if there was a study done on the "PRC propaganda" crowd and the "CCP propaganda" crowd - from a linguistic and propaganda standpoint.
- never tested asymptotic people - in the first weeks, didn't tested anyone unless they had symptoms AND came back from China or Italy - now only takes care of serious cases, which means that if you have mild symptoms you don't get tested
Official numbers a way, way lower than reality.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/animals.ht...
Dogs have surfaces.
A second PCR-positive dog, Hong Kong
https://promedmail.org/promed-post/?id=7112693
Apparently it was a very old dog though.
Published Date: 2020-03-19 15:56:45 Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> COVID-19 update (45): China (Hong Kong) animal, dog, 2nd case PCR positive Archive Number: 20200319.7112693
> The spokesman emphasised [SIC] that there is currently no evidence that pet animals can be a source of COVID-19 for humans or that this virus can cause the disease in dogs
It's noticeable Singapore, Hong Kong and China all reporting imported cases.
In the UK due to the lack of Testing no one but the wealthy know if they have or had Covid unless in a very bad way.
You cannot stop this virus unless you somehow tag who is "clean" and who is "infected"
I.e. a solution to this issue would require:
1) Massive testing of everyone. This can be done via a mobile lab or "at home" kit.
2) Issue a clean certificate
3) Division of all areas to "clean" (you can prove that you have been tested) and "infected". For example, you can board a flight or a train only if you are "clean".
In general, the initial test should be done in parallel and hopefully at the same time.
Once this test is done, all the "clean" certificate can be issued and the quarantine can end.
I personally cannot see any other way. I.e. even if you end the quartine after X weeks, the virus will start again.
So the race is either to massive testing or to a vaccine. I think that reaching massive testing is easier.
First we laughed at China, downplayed it, now we ignore them again? (And if not China, why not look more at Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, there seem to be ways to keep the load for the health system reasonable enough .. but what I also miss too much is how we go forward, not just flatten the curve, but also rump up hospitals, and masks for everyone, and what else it takes to get into some reasonable state as before).
Just translating http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=a089a4d9 from someone who claims to be China insider via his wife:
The reason why China thinks it can lower its shutdown is because they believe they control it now well enough. What is not clear to us in the West is how draconian but efficient they did the lockdown and quarantine:
- Immediate true and complete lockdown of whole China. They do not agree what we understand as lockdown in Italy and other European countries.
- In Shandong (80.000.000 inhabitants) they started tracking by licenses plates, train tickets and mobile phones all 70.000 persons that were in Wuhan and sent them to quarantine. That is like if Germany would have sent anyone who was in Italy on vacation into quarantine start of February.
- Every known infected case had 5 people working on it that via big data, tracking and interviews identified every contact person and put these into quarantine.
- As there was an infection case in a block, the whole house (30 flats) came for 14 days into quarantine into a hotel, they disinfected the whole house, and everyone else in the block (500 flats) were fever checked daily by security.
- Patrols in Wuhan arrested everyone breaking quarantine.
- Fever checking at every checkpoint.
But there was not only force, they are getting daily SMS to their chinese SIM:
- current state of epdemics
- state of food stocks of the province and there is no reason to hamster
- inform that all health costs due to corona will be paid
- how many face masks are produced each day
- that any price gouging is strictly forbidden, with a hotline you can call to report violations
- and general tips for behaviour
They partly paid people also a month wage if they went into hospital for testing/reporting their corona. What we don't understand in Europe is that Chinese government looked at Wuhan for few weeks and then decided that the cheapest way out of this will be this dramatic complete lockdown. Everyone travelling into China btw must go into 2 weeks quarantine. Thus they feel safe from a second big outbreak wave.
--
Let's see if that works (keep in mind everyone there is wearing masks, while not perfect, they likely have a huge impact on reproduction coefficient on large scale).
I believe we should have learned much earlier when everyone was reporting that they e.g. build a hospital ultra quick, and then sent everything into complete lockdown, that they maybe had known what they have at their hands.
By doing our small steps, and also not having massive testing and good behaviour available like South Korea, I'm afraid, it will just take longer for us and the pain will be much larger. In Italy it already is :(
Once we have massive testing, we must create clean zones in order to allow the economy to recover.
If we do not create "clean zones", the virus will return as soon as you lift the quarantine.
Three weeks is probably safer, but they can relax movement on the third week, and allow the person to move about, with active monitoring.
However, this will kill the tourism industry.
Another way, is they only allow entrance from other countries that are certified to also be virus-free. And which controls their borders from other uncertified countries, while maintaining an active health monitoring of the traveling person.
So much for being James Bond in this new age.