jones wrote:
I didn't say their response was flawless. Just that every other government would've done a lot worse.
Where should the power to curb infections reside in your opinion?
I don't think many other governments would silence a whistleblower for essentially a public health emergency and, since I think that's a fundamental part of the response, it needs to be given sufficient prominence - certainly one stems directly from the other. Equally it calls to question the treatment of whistle blowers in China in general but that's another topic. I guess the best you can say is that since mid-Jan information was more transparent compared to the SARS outbreak so there's progress.
Subsequently China has shown excellent leadership and decisive action, I'll get to how I feel about the reach of state powers below but they've set the tone for Asia and have done as well as anyone can expect. It's not for me to say how the people of China should feel about this but either way the price was paid decades ago so I hope it pans out. I don't want to take away from the good that's being done, not because I particularly care about the Chinese government getting its due but more because several millions of people have sacrificed their freedoms and put themselves in harms way in order to mitigate this.
The power to curb infections obviously should be with the state, of course. My concern is more to do with the overreach of powers during a state of emergency. Put it this way, I would not feel comfortable if the government did that to me to this degree (whether in Italy or China) so it would be hypocritical not point it out.
Lastly, Europe and the rest of the high income nations of this world have been curiously ineffective. I don't really think the China model is something that can be easily replicated for a myriad of reasons but the main one is just demographic. Both Vietnam and India are magnitudes larger than most European countries but they've also been able to get to grips to curb the outbreak (for now). Given that the solutions to this seem, effectively, medieval, countries like South Korea, Japan, Germany, UK and France are going to struggle to contain just because they don't have the manpower. What's maddening however is the lack of alternative plans being put forward. Someone needs to set the standard to highlight the gravity of the situation and, in that respect, China has surpassed most.
