In the last fifteen months, there has not been a single covid-19 death in China. This week, newspapers reported cases arising (not rising) in China. What are the numbers? 23, 26, 24, 27, 29 new cases each for the past five days. Many foreigners are mystified or bothered by these facts. Has China been suppressing cases and hiding deaths for over a year? Was coronavirus really a bio-weapon that China unleashed on the rest of the world, with full knowledge of how to keep itself safe?
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I have been trying to read what ordinary young Chinese
have posted on the internet. I quote here TsehNan Chin, a young guy living in
Guangzhou. He graduated from Chicago, spent a few years in the USA and Germany,
but has lived in China throughout the pandemic. This entry was written on 26
June and updated two days later.
On 21 May this year a case was identified in Canton, Guangzhou.
It caused an outbreak (by China’s standards), with 153 people testing positive.
In a month’s time, on 21 June, Canton didn’t have a single case.
The local authorities put all positive cases under
quarantine and treatment immediately. In total, 119 people who had come in
contact with them were taken to the quarantine hotels. All communities where
infected people lived were locked down. Health workers and volunteers conducted
regular tests throughout the community. Government officials and volunteers
provided food and other necessities to people in isolation.
A mass testing campaign tries to test as many people
as possible on a single day. Three such test campaigns were conducted in May
and June. For the city of 18.68 million residents, 36.02 million tests were
conducted between 21 May and 12 June.
Eating places could deliver, but eating-in was
prohibited. Indoor sport centers and swimming pools were shut.
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Nobody was allowed to enter a shopping mall or metro
without showing a green code on the smartphone. The green code means you have
taken a vaccine and tested negative in the past 48 hours. Everyone’s
temperature was measured before entering a mall or a station.
All vaccines are free. All tests are free. Quarantine
is free for those who test positive and those who were in close contact with
them.
Irrespective of the level of sickness, treatment is
free.
Those who have been in close contact with a covid positive
person, and try to hide it; are arrested, charged and tried after making
certain they test negative.
If one is covid positive, and tries to avoid
quarantine or treatment, the person is forcefully quarantined and treated. Once
recovered, he/she is arrested, charged and tried.
For the last eighteen months, the same rules have been
followed. TsehNan Chin, the blogger, says most Chinese people are happy to
cooperate and abide by these regulations.
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Assuming all this is true, and there is no particular
reason to doubt the stated modus operandi to crush the pandemic, would we like
this practice to be adopted everywhere?
This is a delicate and difficult question. China, the
most populated state, has avoided a health catastrophe and economic damage.
Before any other big nation, China was back on its feet. Do authoritarian
measures justify the great results?
If you ask me, they don’t. I will paint an extreme
scenario. If a dictator decides to kill
every person who tests positive, he may succeed in eliminating the virus. It
may even make mathematical sense to kill a few thousands to stop the spread and
stop virus mutations. The health system will not be overwhelmed either.
Most of us would immediately reject this scenario. A
dictator has no moral right to kill covid patients, no matter what the
trade-off is.
For me, it is the same thing with arresting people. Civil
law and criminal law are different. The state may fine people for committing civil
offences (not wearing a mask etc), but to criminalise their actions, and put
them behind bars makes me uncomfortable.
Does that mean we should suffer hundreds of thousands
of covid deaths and economic damage? Yes, unfortunately. That is the choice
made by India, USA, UK and other democracies.
Ravi
I think this choice was made out of necessity. These "democratic" governements maybe would like to implement the same tough barriers in their countries but they know they cannot. Covid sceptisism is a wide spread sentiment there. As it is in "autocratic" Russia. It is not a matter of democratic or autocratic rule, it is a matter of popular sentiment.
ReplyDeleteRussia, namely Putin, was not interested. Russians have a degree of freedom as long as they don't threaten Putin's political power. Russia, if it wanted, could have done what China did. The hands of most democratic countries are tied by the rule of law. Japan is an extreme example, where government is banned from declared lockdowns, or even imposing fines on their citizens.
DeleteLook at the history. China did same to control population.
ReplyDeleteYour last paragraph says it all
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