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What a mess the Chinese have left us in. Dear friends of VisualPolitik, I don't have to
tell you, China is in the eye of the hurricane.
Lately, for one reason or another - even when it's not their fault - this country continues
to cause big headaches for the rest of the world.
If in 2019 it was the trade war and its strained relations with Trump, in 2020 the emergence
of Sars-CoV-2, - popularly known by the name of the disease it causes, COVID-19 - takes
precedence.
And it's hardly surprising!
Up until the time of making this video, this virus had already infected more than 400,000
people in 196 countries.
As evidence of just how serious this issue is; For the first time many countries are
closing their borders and bringing down the shutters completely. For example, in Spain,
the entire population, more than 46 million inhabitants, are currently quarantined as
the Government has decreed a State of Alarm.
If they go out on the street without a justifiable reason they can be fined or even arrested
if they resist.
And it's not only Spain. Italy and France, among other countries, are also in a similar
situation. Mandatory quarantine, closed shops, factories shut down, there is no precedent
for such chaos.
Now, what is it that makes this virus so serious? What exactly are we facing?
Well, you see, SARS-CoV-2 is a new coronavirus first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan,
and it is not the first, second, nor third, but the seventh human coronavirus that is
known to date.
And the truth is that, coronaviruses are not at all new... In fact, it is precisely, some
of these seven known coronavirus strains that are the cause of the common cold. In general,
they are viruses that can generate diseases with very mild symptoms.
However, there is a small group of them which are not so benign.
For example, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, has a lethality rate of 34%, Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS reaches a fatality rate of around 9%, and now there
is also this one, SARS-CoV-2, its lethality is yet to be calculated, but is believed that
it may be greater than 3%.
The thing is that the particular strain of Coronavirus we’re dealing with right now,
the one that's raging through the whole world, seems to be a more resilient, contagious and
somewhat less lethal version than its stepbrother, SARS.
The first cases of infection from this coronavirus were originally detected at the Huanan seafood
market in Wuhan between the 8th and 18th December 2019.
However, subsequent retrospective investigations indicate that patient one, i.e. the first
identified infected person could date from well before then.
Look at this:
(AUDIO: Coronavirus: China’s first confirmed Covid-19 case traced back to November 17 – South
China Morning Post)
And yes, it is clear that as there is new research, it is very likely that patient one
may be traced back to an even earlier carrier.
And it’s that lack of clarity, as you can imagine, that makes it extremely difficult
to identify a new virus and react in time.
Because... think about it for a moment, if you don't have even the slightest idea that
the virus exists, and suddenly patients present with symptoms that in many cases can be similar
to those of the common flu, how on earth can you possibly activate any alarm mechanism?
These early days were when people spread the disease without anyone noticing or any awareness
that a new virus existed.
It is a much more complex situation than that of a country in which an already identified
virus arrives.
Now, keeping all that in mind, do you want to know what the first days of the epidemic
in China were like? What do you think? Do you think they managed it well enough or that
they bungled it?
Well... Let’s find out.
(THE BEGINNING OF CHAOS)
Friends, from mid-December 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, many people began arriving
at hospitals with unidentified pneumonia.
The doctors, as they carried out more and more tests, couldn't understand why so many
people had suddenly developed severe respiratory conditions.
There was no explanation because they were simply not infected by any known viruses,
and the tests that they ran trying to make sense of those symptoms always came back negative.
Until finally, at the end of December, and after many tests, a new pathogen was identified:
the new coronavirus, then called 2019-nCoV //Novel Coronavirus 2019//
But just a minute, if you thought that this discovery led China to get straight to work
fighting this virus, protecting the population and being transparent with the medical community
about their information, you would be very, very wrong.
In fact, it was quite the opposite. At first, the Chinese authorities tried to maintain
an absolute media silence on the emergence of the new coronavirus.
So much so that several days after China had managed to identify with lab tests that what
they were actually experiencing was the onset of an entire epidemic caused by this new virus,
hospitals and medical teams still had no idea what was going on.
Take for example, the case of Dr. Li Wenliang. This doctor wrote to his colleagues on December
30th, 2019 through WeChat - the Chinese WhatsApp - telling them that 7 patients with pneumonia
of unknown origin very similar to those produced by the SARS Coronavirus had arrived at his
hospital.
And there it is. SARS is an old acquaintance in China. From 2002 and for more than two
years, that strain of Coronavirus caused an epidemic that affected more than two dozen
countries.
That's why Dr. Li probably thought he was looking at a new outbreak.
However, as we now know, the reality was very different.
What Dr. Li probably never imagined was that he was at the beginning of the worst health
crisis in the modern world.
A global pandemic caused by a new virus that the Chinese local authorities had already
identified some days previously.
The fact is that for some incomprehensible reason - you all know how touchy dictatorships
can be - Li began to find the Wuhan authorities were annoyed by him raising the alarm and
just three days after alerting several doctors to the subject, he received a visit from a
couple of agents from the Public Security Office threatening retaliation for spreading
false information on the internet. Fake News.
They even made him sign a letter where he came to acknowledge his alleged "misdeeds."
Unfortunately, Doctor Li became infected with coronavirus and on February 7 he died in a
Chinese hospital.
The fact is that as the days passed, the number of cases grew and grew and China still did
not say anything.
In other words, the first reaction of authorities was simply to hide the truth and look the
other way in the hope that the storm would blow over.
But of course, hiding the truth does not stop the spread of the virus.
In this way, during the first weeks of 2020, silence and orchestrated lies were the usual
tonic even though the epidemic continued to gather speed.
And the question is, how is so much negligence possible? Well... this is something we've
talked about more than once before here on VisualPolitik.
Normally, provincial leaders in China have an incredible ambition for becoming state
politicians. And to achieve this, they must demonstrate exemplary management skills in
their provinces.
And of course, an uncontrolled epidemic is hardly going to look good on your resume and
probably won’t get you a one-way ticket to Beijing. In other words, the very political
careers of municipal and regional leaders were at risk.
Perhaps that's why the provincial authorities in Hubei and the city of Wuhan desperately
tried to cover up everything, they lied and tried to control the situation for themselves
without the central government getting directly involved.
So much so that on 16th January these authorities made it clear that everything was under control,
that no infections had been recorded since the 3rd of that same month, and that there
were only 41 confirmed cases without evidence of any human-to-human infection.
Of course, that was all a lie.
Now, why was this a terrible, devastating mistake that determined what was to come next?
Well, you see, the fact is that asymptomatic infected people or those with very mild symptoms
were the key to the initial growth of the epidemic.
As the medical journal Science unknowingly explained, without having the remotest suspicion,
these infected but asymptomatic people spreading the disease expanded its range and multiplied
the contagion.
(AUDIO: Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel
coronavirus – Science)
In this way, in just a few days in Wuhan and Hubei things had got completely out of hand
and the health authorities had no choice but to tell the truth: just 3 days after they
said that everything was under control, infections had multiplied almost five-fold.
A chaos had begun that would take weeks, months to control.
Finally, on January 20th, China accepted that the virus is transmitted via human contact.
That's when the battle to stop it spreading really started.
Just three days later, the city of Wuhan was already under strict quarantine, something
that was soon expanded to the entire province of Hubei, a province of about 60 million inhabitants.
And that, my friends, it's how the real hell began for the inhabitants of Hubei, a hell
caused by a virus that had spent three weeks roaming freely around with no control because
of the secrecy and opacity of the Chinese political class.
But given that, once the truth had been accepted, what could have been done to stop the epidemic
in its tracks? How did the Chinese authorities behave from the moment they were forced to
recognize the truth? What measures did they take?
And perhaps the most important question of all, what were the consequences?
Let’s see:
(THE GREAT BATTLE)
Dear friends, throughout late January and early February, China experienced a real storm.
From an economic standpoint, which we will discuss in depth in another video, business
activity in all major cities was halted and industrial production fell to even lower levels
than those recorded during the 2008 financial crisis.
But the worst damage of the storm was undoubtedly experienced in Hubei Province, the epicentre
of the outbreak.
There, the Chinese government established savage blocking and quarantine measures, the
likes of which had never before been seen, in an effort to maximize social distancing,
isolate the virus and prevent contagion.
In other words, they prevented people from approaching each other.
the Chinese measures included: authorities blocking roads;
intercity travel was banned; physical barriers were erected within the
urban centres of Hubei province to prevent people from going from one place to another;
written leave permits were established to leave the house where citizens had to justify
why they were doing it; and home delivery services were launched so
people wouldn't even have to go to the supermarket.
And that’s not all. All kinds of spaces were provided to accommodate the people infected,
thousands of checks were carried out on public roads to detect possible cases and more than
7,000 people worked non-stop, 24/7 on the construction of new hospitals.
These hospitals were ready in just a few days and provided a lot of new much needed beds
to deal with the epidemic.
In other words, once China accepted the problem, the response was very forceful, rapid and
strict. They did their best to stop the epidemic, even if it meant a severe economic blow.
And at this point the question we have to ask is, did all these drastic measures work?
Well, the figures say yes.
In the second half of January alone, R0 (R nought) was reduced, i.e. the rate of contagion,
from 2.35 to 1.05.
That is, the number of people infected by each positive case fell by more than half.
The isolation was working.
In this way the pace of new infections was slowed considerably, and in early February
new cases of contagion began to decline.
(CHART)
But, right now, many of you are probably wondering... what would have been the scenario if such
radical measures had not been taken?
All right, everyone, hold on to your hats... Several epidemiological models have estimated
that 40% of China's population, some 500 million people, would have been infected.
Now, wait a minute, that hardly means they won:
True, millions of infections were prevented and the epidemic was brought under control,
but those same studies show that if China had acted three weeks earlier rather than
hide reality, the number of infected could have been greatly reduced to less than 5%
of those that actually happened.
And of course, the consequences for the rest of the world would probably have been very
different as well: the spread of the virus around the world would not have occurred or
would have been minimal.
So, can we say that China handled things correctly? Can we talk about success?
Well... yes and no, it depends.
On one hand they committed enormous negligence by hiding the disease and not acting for such
a long period of time. That is something that simply can’t be overlooked.
But on the other hand, it is true that the radical quarantine measures they took slowed
down the epidemic dramatically to the point that, by March 24th, China had reported only
78 new cases of which, listen to this, 74 had been imported from abroad.
Yes, that’s right. Only four local cases in a country that had previously reported
more than 5,000 local cases in one day. And seeing these facts from around the world...
That sure sounds like a success.
But, remember, China's own radical response was the consequence of China's own negligence.
Negligence that is currently spreading chaos and claiming thousands of victims across the
planet.
But now... Your turn: What do you think? Do you think China deserves praise for its handling
of the crisis or, on the contrary, do you think the Chinese authorities are responsible
for what has happened?
And let’s give it another twist, do you think the response of the Beijing authorities
would be feasible in a democratic country? Would similar behaviour have similar consequences?
Leave your answer in the comments as well as in the survey.
So I really hope you enjoyed this video, please hit like if you did, and don’t forget to
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And as always, I’ll see you in the next video.