To achieve its requests in the US, the article needs more “oomph”. Do some mildly valid math to predict death counts, economic impact, etc and then maybe the government could be interested.
Hunan shut itself down. There was video of hundreds of people in makeshift hospitals. Trucks with some kind of disinfectant spray were roaming the streets.
It was real-world impact. It was not theoretical impact.
It took us until March/April 2020 to start getting serious.
I strongly doubt the current federal leadership is inclined to act in a more risk-adverse way than in March of 2020.