Map of spread - far and wide
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Yup. Locking down Wuhan now is not even shutting the barn door after the horse has gone. It’s after the horses, cattle and goats have gone and set up herds in all the neighboring countries. Closing the door now is mostly to show “we are addressing this, unlike the SARS debacle.” Not gonna be any more effective though. The incubation period is gonna be the kicker here. If it is more than a few days, spread is inevitable now.
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Initially no one wants to pass bad news up the chain of power (#1 rule of authoritarianism is don’t upset people with more power than you) so nothing is done. When those with power to do something find out about it they come up with a plan themselves which is immediately implemented because they have yes-men not advisors.
The only plus of authoritarianism is that you can take drastic actions like this one. The overwhelming minus is that the drastic actions are more likely than not to be the wrong ones.
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Wait, are you characterizing the Chinese government as “concerned with the welfare of its citizenry rather than personal gain and maintaining control of the levers of power?”
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No, I’m suggesting the North American tour this bug takes will be much worse for the ineptitude/sheer not-giving-a-shit that the current US government puts forward as ‘winning.’
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The problem is: they didn’t actually quarantine anyone. Anyone rich enough to afford their own vehicles are free to spread the virus wherever they like. Meanwhile anyone who needs public transportation to get to a hospital now gets to sit at home untreated (but infecting those who are now forced to care for them without safeguards). It’s not just incredibly authoritarian, it’s a spectacularly counter-productive response.
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Apparently there’s also an issue with how policy gets created and implemented - the policy being created at the level of the central government, but implemented at a local level where apparently leaders are often incompetent, corrupt…
I keep thinking of the one-child policy and the horrors that created, but how it’s morphed into something more absurd now that vestiges of it remain even while the government is trying to boost population numbers. The result is that the government is actively encouraging women to have more children - and then punishing them when they do…
The system is working then. If they don’t show up at hospitals than they can’t be counted as sick, so therefore it all looks good, right. /s
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I wonder if that’s an intended consequence, even… given that the whole response is more about the appearance of having done something, it would make sense. (Even if officials are too incompetent to be that scheming, it could be true - they shut down some transport, reported cases drop, they see that as proof their approach works and do more of it…)
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if you get the “in the lab” expansion i think that it includes solo based play.
hope that helps.
It wouldn’t surprise me. It is always easier to look like shit is getting done in the short term and having the easily gathered numbers support you than actually doing something constructive.
One of the biggest problems is that no one knows exactly what would be most effective is a situation like this. Theoretically an outbreak could be slowed down by these actions if taken in time, with a smaller population and area.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the decision making went something like this:
Big boss - Ike! I guess this is worse than we hoped. Do something!
Mid boss - I don’t know what to do, asks an expert.
Expert - Well, in situations like this we do A, B, C…
Mid boss - A, we can do A.
Expert - Well, A works if…
Mid boss - I don’t care, A is something, boss we have a plan
Boss - Make it so
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Yah well. Quarantine with Chinese characteristics. At least they had a recent dry run with SARS.
OK…so what was the productive response?
Warning Long post. Straight out of China.
Total reported coronavirus cases in China (as of 8.19am Sat Jan 25)
- 1,287 confirmed
- 1,965 suspected
- 38 recovered
- 41 deaths
Cases in Beijing and surrounding areas :
Beijing: 36 confirmed cases, 1 recovered
Tianjin: 8 confirmed cases
Hebei: 2 confirmed cases, 1 death
Cases in other provinces and regions (listed by number of confirmed cases):
Hubei: 729 confirmed cases, 32 recovered, 39 deaths
Guangdong: 53 confirmed cases, 2 recovered
Zhejiang: 43 confirmed cases, 1 recovered
Chongqing: 27 confirmed cases
Hunan: 24 confirmed cases
Guangxi: 23 confirmed cases
Shanghai: 20 confirmed cases, 1 recovered
Jiangxi: 18 confirmed cases
Anhui: 15 confirmed cases
Shandong: 15 confirmed cases
Sichuan: 15 confirmed cases
Fujian: 10 confirmed cases
Jiangsu: 9 confirmed case
Henan: 9 confirmed cases
Hainan: 8 confirmed cases
Shaanxi: 5 confirmed cases
Yunnan: 5 confirmed cases
Gansu: 4 confirmed cases
Heilongjiang: 4 confirmed cases, 1 death
Liaoning: 4 confirmed cases
Guizhou: 3 confirmed cases
Jilin: 3 confirmed cases
Taiwan: 3 confirmed cases
Hong Kong: 2 confirmed cases
Macao: 2 confirmed cases
Ningxia: 2 confirmed case
Xinjiang: 2 confirmed cases
Shanxi: 1 confirmed case
Inner Mongolia: 1 confirmed case
Qinghai: 1 suspected case
Word on the street
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(1/24, 12.55am) First death outside of Wuhan: The 18th victim of the Wuhan Coronavirus — and the first outside of Wuhan — passed away yesterday in Hebei Province. The 80-year-old male from Cangzhou, about 200km south of Beijing, had just returned from visiting relatives in Wuhan.
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(1/24, 12.36am) International School Chain Delays Reopening Beijing’s Yew Chung International School, part of a network of international schools in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and other cities in China, announced late Thursday night that they would delay the post-CNY return to all of their network schools from Feb 3 to Feb 17. They have asked all students, teachers and administrators to return as normal as if school was to start on Feb 3, to “ensure an adequate quarantine period at home before school starts.” Class assignments will be delivered digitally during the break and a full disinfection of school premises will be made before the resumption of school.
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(1/23, 11.32pm) Forbidden City Closing: The National Palace Museum announced this evening that they will be closing Saturday Jan 25 as a measure to control the potential spread of the virus and will remain closed until further notice. Prince Gong’s Mansion, another popular tourist spot, also announced they are closing immediately until further notice. Other city attractions that have announced closure include the National Art Museum, National Library, Zhokoudian, the Birds Nest and the Beijing Observatory.
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(1/23, 5:59pm) District-by-District Breakdown of Beijing Infections: The Beijng News has a district-by-district breakdown of the 22 infections so far in Beijing: Xicheng (3); Chaoyang (2); Haidian (3); Fengtai (1); Shijingshan (1); Tongzhou (2); Daxing (2); Changping (2); visitors from Wuhan (6).
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(1/23, 5:40pm) Temple Fairs Cancelled: Temple fairs are part of Chinese New Year tradition, but the Wuhan coronavirus is messing with that. The ones we were able to reach directly Thursday afternoon all said that they are officially cancelling this year’s fairs. This includes fairs at Ditan Park, Longtanhu Park, Daguanyuan and Dongyue Temple. If you plan to go to any of the other fairs, please take precautions: we’d suggest masks and hand sanitizer at the very minimum.
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(1/23, 5:40pm) Beijing Subway Disinfected Hourly: The Beijing Subway running normally and is disinfecting every station on an hourly basis.
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(1/23, 12.13pm) Fatalities Mostly Elderly, No Children: The People’s Daily released details of all 17 fatalities so far: three female (48, 70, and 82 years old) and 14 male (53, 61, 65, 66, 66, 69, 75, 80, 81, 82, 84, 86, 89, and 89). The youngest victim was 48 and the average age of all is 73.
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(1/23, 11.30am) Beijing Airports Running Smoothly: Messages circulating yesterday suggested those departing via Beijing’s airports plan to arrive 4 hours prior to departure, because of increased health checks. However, several expat travelers at the airports yesterday and today say they have not had any abnormal delays. With the situation evolving by the hour and today being the last official day of work before the CNY holiday, we suggest those traveling by air play it safe and give yourself some extra time just in case.
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(1/23 8.43am) Civets, Bats Off The Hook? This Live Science article says some gene-sequencing scientists are now leaning towards snakes as the origin of the Wuhan Coronavirus.
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(1/23 3.15am) Wuhan Shuts Down Public Transport: Wuhan announced late Wednesday that the entire public transport system in the city of 11 million would be shut down indefinitely as of 10am on Thursday. This includes buses, subway, and ferry service, while all airports and railway stations will be closed temporarily. No timetable of a return to service has been announced.
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(1/23 2.39am) So Far, Less Deadly: Reported deaths almost doubled Wednesday night, going from 9 to 17, with all the deaths occurring in Wuhan. Despite this, the 3.1 percent mortality rate of this outbreak still appears to be considerably lower than 2003’s SARS, which killed 9.6 percent of those that contracted it.
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(1/22 8.12pm) Only Fever Clinics Can See Patients with Fevers: Got a fever over 38 degrees C and having trouble breathing? This is when you should go to see a doctor… but you must go to a hospital that is equipped with fever clinic. Luckily there are 89 of them all over Beijing (including Beijing United, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, and Peking Union), and all but five are 24 hours. A full list in Chinese is available here.
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(1/22 7.58pm) Civet Cats to Blame Again?: The AFP has a detailed post in English about the animals on offer at the Huanan Seafood Market, the alleged origin of the outbreak. Civet Cats are once again mentioned as possible culprits, which if it turns out to be true would be an embarrassing setback given that civets were pinned as the source of the SARS outbreak in 2003.
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(1/22 7.20pm) Beijing Hotels Affected: Several Beijing hoteliers are reporting that cancellations are way up, and no incoming bookings are taking their place. Read more about how the coronavirus stands to affect your Beijing stay here.
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(1/22 7.20pm) Caucasian Conspiracy: In an already deleted Weibo post, some crackpot suggested that since no Caucasians died of SARS (which is patently false) it can only mean that the virus is a conspiracy launched by white people to infect the Asian races.
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(1/22 3.30pm) Offices Sprayed: People in Beijing report that many offices have decided to take off a day early, letting staff leave or continue their work from home. The common areas of many office buildings have been sprayed with disinfectant, and companies have been handing out masks and hand sanitizers to their staff.
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(1/22 3.30pm) Beijing Subway Line 5 Rumor Quashed: A rumor circulating on Tuesday described how Line 5 was closed after a regular commuter was diagnosed with the virus, turned out to be just that – a rumor. It turns out that while person in question – an intern at a gaming company – was indeed ill, he had been cleared of having the Wuhan coronavirus.
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(1/22 3.30pm) Now Boarding, Wuhan to Beijing: In what may turn out to be a bad omen for Beijing, flight data presented by this Chinese-language WeChat account shows that the #1 destination by far for passengers flying out of Wuhan, the presumed source of the virus, is Beijing. Nearly 60,000 inbound passengers are estimated to have landed between Dec 30 and Jan 20.
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(1/22 3.30pm) Bats, Man: China Daily reported on Tuesday that the virus may have originated from bats, though they also suggested there may be an “intermediary” species that lead to the virus infecting humans.
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(1/22 3.30pm) Lose Your Lunch: The suspected origin of the outbreak has been traced to the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which despite its name, also allegedly dabbles in the meat camels, civets, kangaroo, and scorpion. This Chinese-language WeChat post has some harrowing photos reportedly from the market that will have you saying, “Well, now this all makes sense…”
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(1/22 3.30pm) CDC on the Case: The US-based Centers for Disease Control has this page set up to follow the virus, which currently lacks an easy-to-use nickname like SARS and is being referred to as “2019 novel coronavirus” or “2019-nCoV."
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FYI A decent Wuhan Coronavirus tracker from The Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at JHU (Johns Hopkins Univ.)
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
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And yet the hunger for meat continues to grow.
We’re so bad collectively at learning lessons from past experience.
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TBH I was thinking (hoping not) that African Swine Fever had mutated so that it had become human transmissible. The cost of pork in China must be going through the roof right now.
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Too late,
They screen a now sick person entering Macau. The screening was negative, she felt sick few days later.
Even hospital staff wearing protective mask are getting sick by dozen (after claiming not, of course)
China learned nothing from 2003. The very same animal they forbid the sale on market after 2003 were still on display on Wuhan market in 2019.
CCP, again and again.
The only change is they have much more fast train and airport now, so everything is spreading faster.
Chinese Gov was so proud of the high speed train from Wuhan direct to Hong Kong.
Instead of investing hospital and training doctors, they though blocking internet was enough to be safe.
And with the ban of foreign website, and people using only controlled social media information, they even banned the word “Wuhan” and "SARS" during 2 weeks (and so let the virus spread without any warning)
Well done China one more time
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Officially, they shut down illegal fresh markets 17 years ago… (gradually; one every 10 years)
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