
China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus - dsr12
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-05/china-sacrifices-a-province-to-save-the-world-from-coronavirus
======
apatters
Just dropping a link here, anyone who is concerned about the coronavirus and
has opinions about it should imo read the daily situation reports from the
WHO: [https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-
coronavirus-2...](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-
coronavirus-2019/situation-reports)

In 5 minutes a day you will have a better informed perspective than what any
news sites provide, my own alarm has lessened considerably after reading
these.

~~~
taneq
I just ran across this link
([https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594))
suggesting that the official numbers coming out of China may be significantly
understated. I'm not familiar with the site, though - are they a reliable news
source? Not sure how much credence to give it.

~~~
tim333
I don't know about those numbers but I think deaths may be considerably
understated due to them only counting people who have been properly tested for
coronavirus, found to have it and then died but there are probably many others
who have died without being able to get a test such as the grandmother
mentioned in the article. It's a bit worrying there are no figures for that -
the local officials must have an idea how many extra bodies are turning up at
crematoria and the like but it doesn't seem to be public.

~~~
taborj
^ This exactly. They may be accurately reporting the actual number of
diagnosed cases (which I'm on the fence about), but they are certainly not
reporting "suspected" cases. I understand that's hard to discern, but they
should have a decent idea about the average mortality rate in the area, and be
able to see an uptick that will give them a rough estimate.

~~~
zhongjiewu
Honestly I think it is hard job to get an accurate reporting giving the scale
of the problem. We are talking about a single digit accuracy at the scale of
10k+. Even in H1N1 outbreaks, the medical visits and death tolls in the US was
estimated with a wide band. That being said, the death of un-confirmed
patients could be intentionally ignored to make the problem look not so big.
But this is not a unique thing to authoritarian governments.

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coconut_crab
Back in the 60s, my father went to China to continue his study (our country
was being ravaged by B52s every days). Just after he arrived, he and his
classmates were put under quarantine for 1 month as a Meningitis epidemic was
spreading. They spent the every days locked in the house, with a serving of
guanzhong medicine in the morning. It was a shock to all the Vietnamese there,
as it's basically house arrest. China has been using quarantine as a tool to
prevent epidemic spreading for a long time, ignoring all the hardships of the
people inside.

Oh and it was during the Cultural Revolution too, so they were executing
counter revolutionary people behind the school every afternoon (this was after
the epidemic). Needless to say it left a very bad impression of China gov on
my father.

------
mucholove
Sacrifice my ass. Their incompetence led to a province and its people being
hung out to dry.

They let this problem get out of hand—and now the people there suffer.

How?

They ignored the doctors who attempted to report the problem on New Year’s
day.

They (the CCP) take no precautionary measures until their political regime is
threatened.

So many things done wrong—including maintaining wet market controls up a few
years after H1N1.

~~~
bitbrewer
Do not agree. Government everywhere makes mistakes under emergencies. Just
look at past responses to hurricanes in the US and the current wildfire in
Australia. Maybe you could say every government is incompetent. But the fact
is that China reported the cases very early to WHO, get the genes mapped very
quickly, and decisively locked down Hebei. So I would say so far China has
shown competence and resolve, against a tough virus.

~~~
ourlordcaffeine
Did you miss the part when they arrested doctors who reported the virus
because they didn't want to deal with the virus during a local government
meeting and banquet?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Is it confirmed? I see just some YouTube videos; that + the description
upthread triggers my conspiracy theory alarm.

~~~
BiasRegularizer
Here is the news from Jan 1 in Chinese.

[https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2020_01_01_530191.shtml?s=zw...](https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2020_01_01_530191.shtml?s=zwyxgtjbt)

~~~
unityByFreedom
Reading the translation, this sounds like what police would say in a parody,
yet this is real. Thank you for sharing it and I hope your family and we all
make it through this in good health.

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canada_dry
When the dust settles from this event I suspect one positive will be that
China will throw technology at the problem of more rapidly detecting viral
outbreaks and more quickly locking down the affected areas.

~~~
tim333
And maybe refrain from arresting doctors reporting the problem?

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bhanhfo
The amount of up- and downvoting on anything China related feels insane. I
wish someone at Hackernews will write a blog post about this some day
(accounts, IP addresses, and whatever other data they have). From a casual
reader perspective, I feel I have not seen this pattern on other controversial
topics that sometimes show up here, e. g. gun control.

~~~
yorwba
Dang posts explanations about this perception once in a while:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20brigading&sort=byDate&type=comment)

------
platz
Well 2019-ncov is probably here to stay permanently, so while I appreciate the
effort to slow it down, they're not going to save the world from it quite yet.

~~~
huxflux
What are you basing this statement on? or is it just the flu of Reddit-
inspired speculations on HN?

~~~
greatpatton
I think that this article ([https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/2020/feb/06/h...](https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/2020/feb/06/hidden-coronavirus-cases-could-thwart-containment-
efforts-experts-warn)) illustrate that it is very likely that the symptoms in
most people are mild and these people are not seeking medical advice while
spreading it around them.

If this is really the case, it is going to be very difficult to contain it.

------
pritovido
Not really. China has the highest population on the world on absolute and
relative basis.

It it very dangerous for China letting a new virus spread. They have lots of 5
Million inhabitants cities. On Norway or any low density country in which
people live isolated in Winter anyway not so much.

China is not trying to save the world, it is trying to save itself.

------
hurrdurr2
The amount of virulent (pun intended) hatred of the Chinese government really
shows here. Can't say it's not well deserved but you can at least give them
some credit for the quarantine.

~~~
coblers
Credit? They only acted because they had to. Doctors were arrested weeks
before for "spreading rumors". Their inability to act has led to this thing
spreading beyond their borders.

~~~
DarthGhandi
Would this quarantine happen in your country or any Western country? I doubt
it.

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dehrmann
> Two new hospitals, with 2,600 beds in total, were completed in _10 days_ ,
> _built by more than 2,000 migrant workers_

China.

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
Per another HN thread on that, they're really not hospitals so much as
warehouses with beds in them. Not that they necessarily need fully equipped
hospital facilities for the purpose of housing and treating the infected, but
it's still a mischaracterization to call them hospitals.

~~~
evidencebased
There are plenty of videos on Youtube showing that they are in fact not just
warehouses with beds. What would they need to contain to qualify as hospitals
in your opinion?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDIcWkjCKIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDIcWkjCKIg)

------
aaron695
> China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

Bullshit.

The world would have been like exactly like Hubei, and Hubei no different if
they didn't lock it down.

There was no "Sacrifices"

Putting in curfew reduced deaths if anything, they also added doctors and
built hospitals.

If the 'sacrifice' is economic because of curfews, then fair enough, but they
do not have deaths or illness worse because of the lock down.

~~~
zhongjiewu
It is not entirely true. This sacrifice entails two things. On one side,
without a lockdown, people in Human can seek medical help in other cities and
provinces when they get sick. After a lockdown, local medical resources are in
severe shortage hence higher death rate. On the other side, it limits the
spread of the disease for the good of other provinces and hence the rest of
the world. If this isn't sacrifice, I'm not sure what sacrifice is.

~~~
aaron695
> After a lockdown, local medical resources are in severe shortage hence
> higher death rate

No, this is false. Supplies and doctors still came in after lock down. Lots of
them because they were not needed elsewhere.

> On one side, without a lockdown, people in Human can seek medical help in
> other cities and provinces when they get sick.

This is also false. As soon as they leave they spread the virus any other
hospital will become swamped and just the same.

There sacrifice is they don't get to spread the virus and make everyone else
as bad as they have it. Not quite true.... They would have it worse since they
will lose resources if it spreads. But they do miss the comfort of being the
same by not spreading it. That is all.

~~~
zhongjiewu
> Supplies and doctors still came in after lock down. You mean the government
> get doctors from other cities to Wuhan because they are not needed,
> regardless if Wuhan is in medical shortage? This is a weird logic that I
> cannot agree. IMO, mobilizing doctors from hundreds of miles away, which
> costs a lot money and management effort, is exactly an attempt to solve the
> shortage issue. There are various video materials showing super crowded
> hospitals in Wuhan and other Hubei cities. It is also consistent with
> building not one, but two temporary hospitals with thousands of workers at
> much pricier cost.

Based on the activity data from TV news, fever related medical visit stays in
single digit nationwide. If lock down are not announced and enforced, people
in Hunan that are richer will flood to other cities such as Shanghai and
Beijing for better medical services, as this happens from several news
reports. People would choose to travel since their immediate action will not
cause medical shortage elsewhere before they are handled. The idea of seeking
medical help elsewhere will make matters worse is correct, but it is a macro
level insight and will not change these people's mind to grasp these resources
before they are gone.

It is not deniable that without a lockdown, people in Hubei province will on
average get medical help in the short run and everybody else is much worse
off. This is why it's not a sacrifice.

------
raxxorrax
You can only lock down a city in a dictatorship. So I certainly would not
approve of this behavior.

Additionally any speculation about the effectiveness of the quarantine is
futile in my opinion.

~~~
cjslep
What? US state and federal emergency responders have plans and tools for
locking down a city, too.

~~~
zozbot234
Yup. Specifically, many people have speculated that FEMA has contingency plans
where they would even be able to set up internment camps for as many people as
needed, if required to quarantine an epidemic or other national emergency. Not
too far from what's going on in Wuhan.

~~~
EForEndeavour
_Which_ people have speculated, and on what grounds? Anyone can speculate
anything about FEMA's disaster plans to make internment of arbitrarily large
numbers of people sound like a totally normal thing.

~~~
zozbot234
Look, there's a lot of material on this already, I'm not making up anything.
Just google FEMA internment camps.

~~~
netsharc
If you google that, you get right wing propaganda, the kind of sites which
also claim Obama is a Kenyan-Muslim-time-travelling-terrorist.

But maybe you are one of them, now you're going to jump and down telling us
FEMA is the Waffen-SS.

------
backupcavalry
Correction: China makes a show out of sacrificing a province to demonstrate to
the world that no, they really are being serious about it this time, honest!

------
gdm85
Feels like the story of Dying Light

------
sillycube
Sacrifices?

The officers who announced the fact were punished for making rumors. If they
didn't hide the truth of Wuhan at the beginning, everyone will be aware of the
issue.

China is just paying for the price due to prohibiting freedom of speech

------
markdown
Meanwhile, [https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-
news/408915/chin...](https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-
news/408915/chinese-embassy-in-suva-hits-out-at-fiji-govt-over-border-closure)

~~~
bitbrewer
WHO clearly does not recommend travel bans. [https://www.who.int/news-
room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on...](https://www.who.int/news-
room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on-the-second-meeting-of-the-international-
health-regulations-\(2005\)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-outbreak-of-
novel-coronavirus-\(2019-ncov\)) : The Committee does not recommend any travel
or trade restriction based on the current information available.

~~~
markdown
The point is that China implements severe travel bans within their own
country, and yet are reprimanding another country for trying to do something
similar.

China also claims to have it under control (in the same reprimand) yet
Coronavirus has snuck through their borders numerous times and is now in a
dozen countries.

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rado
Bloomberg didn't get the memo to report only negatively on China?

