As we wait and watch to see the progression of the Wuhan coronavirus, James Griffiths of CNN is using this as an opportunity to examine how China has responded, compared to a similar situation with SARS from years ago, especially with the advent of President Xi Jinping and his domination of the Chinese Communist Party and, therefore, the government. Griffiths’ takeaway?
Revelations about the true spread and severity of the virus only came after the four-week travel period had got underway, and restrictions on people leaving Wuhan itself did not come into place until Thursday. One woman identified as having the virus in South Korea even told health officials there that she visited a doctor in Wuhan with symptoms — after screening measures were introduced — but got sent on her way and was able to leave the country. …
Once Xi intervened, essentially signaling that the Wuhan virus was fair game for Chinese media, reporters rushed to the scene. Both Caixin and the Beijing News — some of the most independently minded outlets in the country — quickly began producing in-depth coverage, some of which exposed oversights by local officials and punched holes in their narrative. Writing on WeChat from Wuhan, Caixin reporter Gao Yu compared the situation to SARS, saying that “the lack of transparency, public supervision and truth (have) caused huge damage to public safety.”
China learned hard lessons in 2003 at a terrible cost. The legacy of SARS could be seen in the central government’s response this month, and that of Chinese scientists, both of which deserve a great deal of credit.
But Xi has also reversed gradual liberalization and opening up which occurred post-SARS, massively centralizing power within the Communist Party once again. At the same time, he has overseen a crackdown on the internet, the press and civil society, and an anti-corruption purge that, while it has turfed out plenty of bad apples, may also have left provincial officials more afraid of angering Beijing.
Xi is the closest China has had to an emperor since Mao, but like the old saying goes, he’s often far away. The Wuhan virus shows what happens when the country has to rely on information filtering up to the top for decisive action to be taken.
While I appreciate the examination of how the imposition of more top-down autocracy affects the psychology of the local leaders, it also seems a bit futile to me.
Look, if a world-wide and massively fatal epidemic ever hits our world, our respective political systems will not serve to protect us to any great extent. What some, including myself, would regard as our great advantages of the current age will also prove to be our undoing:
- Heavy volume travel. The fact that we can move more people from place to place than ever before, whether it be by car, train, or plane, means a virus has a better chance than ever of moving from, say, Ypsilanti, MI, USA, to Almaty, Kazakhstan, in a matter of hours or a day or two.
- Rapid travel. The speed of travel means an innocent traveler can make the aforementioned trip, shed pathogens in both places, and innocently move on to even more cities, before finally sickening and succumbing.
- Over the counter drugs. Ironically, the analgesics we can buy to make us feel good also let’s us keep going and spread the hypothetical pathogen even further than a properly ill person, holed up in their house or hotel room, might accidentally accomplish.
- Overpopulation. The more of us there are, and the closer we live together and interact with each other, the more likely a pathogen will continue to survive and spread, rather than “burn out” and stop.
I understand that Griffiths is merely using the Wuhan virus to illuminate how the change in Chinese governance affects governmental response, but his article simply evoked my oddball response.
Griffiths also reports that there are now 25 dead, a number I’ve not seen mentioned elsewhere just yet. From WaPo:
“A bigger outbreak is certain,” said Guan Yi, a virologist who helped identify severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. He estimated — “conservatively,” he said — that this outbreak could be 10 times bigger than the SARS epidemic because that virus was transmitted by only a few “super spreaders” in a more defined part of the country.
“We have passed through the ‘golden period’ for prevention and control,” he told Caixin magazine from self-imposed quarantine after visiting Wuhan. “What’s more, we’ve got the holiday traffic rush and a dereliction of duty from certain officials.”
I hope he’s an alarmist, but here he is again:
“I’ve seen it all: bird flu, SARS, influenza A, swine fever and the rest. But the Wuhan pneumonia makes me feel extremely powerless,” he told Caixin. “Most of the past epidemics were controllable, but this time, I’m petrified.”
However, thinking back to our last big plague, the Spanish Flu of 1918, the key difference is that the flu turned our strength against us by over-activating a strong & healthy immune system. That the Wuhan virus doesn’t seem to exhibit this reaction may be why it’ll never be appalling as the Spanish Flu.
