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| China daily deaths = zero, since April. Daily cases, 7-day avg = 27 Compare and contrast with the World |
All over the world Covid cases and deaths are on the rise. Especially the US, UK and Europe. While in China, they’re back to normal and the seven-day average of deaths is zero and has been since 24 April. And all over the world people are looking for lessons -- who’s doing best, how and why? The one country they don’t look to is China. Because, I assume, China is on the nose, (1) for the way it (mis)handled the outbreak a year ago now, and (2) the belief that you can’t trust its figures.
As for (1) we can apply Hanlon’s razor: “never attribute to malice what is explained by stupidity”, or more charitably “don’t ascribe to conspiracy what is explained by incompetence (or uncertainty)”, given that at the outbreak no-one knew what they were dealing with. There’s an exhaustive discussion of the handling of the early data in Quillette. In any case, we’re well past that chaotic beginning, nearly a year ago.
As for (2), given where we sit, here in Hong Kong and the many family connections to the mainland, we would know if there were mass hiding of infection or death figures. There are not. And everyone in China is back to normal activity. That would not be the case if there really were fudging of the figures. I just had a call three days ago with my friend who lives in Zhongshan. He told me that most mainlanders did not need to wear a mask when walking in the streets or playing in the park because the coronavirus is totally under control. They just wear masks in some indoor spaces like supermarkets. Yet, there are Hongkongers who continue to believe that the mainland has low infection numbers only because the Chinese government is deliberately hiding facts.
I’ve talked to people in China and outside, who know what’s going on. It’s clear that China has indeed got the virus under control. That’s not fake news. Or China hiding the figures. So, what’s it done right and is there anything we can learn from them?
I’ve talked to people in China and outside, who know what’s going on. It’s clear that China has indeed got the virus under control. That’s not fake news. Or China hiding the figures. So, what’s it done right and is there anything we can learn from them?
- Focus: China made it a priority to eradicate the disease. Xi Jinping said something along the lines of ‘we can make money later, people come first.’
- Quarantine: The people of China didn’t argue over being quarantined.
- Subsidies: The government picked up the tab for all sorts of things like rents, testing, hospitalization of the sick.
- Track and Trace: China has superb tracing apps that give people a colour code that allows them to enter places only if they have not unwittingly been in the same area as a COVID person. No need to take names and addresses in restaurants, buses etc. it’s all done automatically. Everyone in the mainland is required to have a . The codes use three different colours – red, yellow, green – to indicate a person’s likelihood of coronavirus infection. People in the mainland need to present their codes to enter places like shopping malls or restaurants. The effectiveness of this is due to CHina’s investment in surveillance, not as much followed in the west.
- Judgement: The government in Beijing made some very good moves early on, and continue to make them.
- Volunteers: millions of volunteers answered the government’s call to help out across the nation, for medical and logistical support and to support the effectiveness of the early lockdowns. It would be a mistake to assume that this was done by force. It was not.
- Science: related to not ideology (eg individual vs collective, science vs religion, or “democracy” vs technology). The decision made based on experts’ advice, executive committee’s backing, not a reckless move. (It was a completely lockdown, and quarantine all cases)
- Leadership accountability: First time in modern history in the world to lockdown a cosmopolitan city of the size of Wuhan, right before the Chinese New Year without getting into social unrest and riots - there was no army or riot police in sight. The decision was made with huge political and economic risks - Q1 GDP from +6% to -6.8%, and it was made in a very short time.
- Speed: As opposed to dilatory action in the west: we still recall how the west looked on in part amazement in part mocking tone, at how China had handled the virus early on, saying “we can’t do that in the west, we’re democracies”, only to lock down every bit as severely, but way too late. Much of the comment at the time was barely concealed racism, which the west ought reflect on with shame.
- There is no 10, though ought to be, to round it out. If you can think of one (or more) please do email me.
Some of these are transferable to the west. Some, no doubt not: for example the widespread surveillance system. It’s also not fully understood outside China the extent to which they are post-analog. Cash money is virtually a thing of the past; all payments are by App, even more so than here in Hong Kong. Ditto pretty much everything else. So this would affect the extent to which China experience is transferrable, like that Health QR code.
But at the very least these issues ought to be looked at. Yet we are not. We look instead to New Zealand, or Iceland or Australia. Irrelevant.
We ought, as they say, “have a discussion” about what China has done right and see what in particular we can learn. With the virus still rampaging in the west, we really need to do that.
