How China Is Back To Normal While The U.S. And Europe Are Getting From Bad To Worse

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Coronavirus – Here’s How China Is Back To Normal While The U.S. And Europe Are Getting From Bad To Worse

The Thanksgiving holiday is around the corner. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious-disease expert, said Americans must “sacrifice” it if they hope to prevent another surge of Covid-19 cases. The White House Coronavirus advisor said during an interview with CBS News that his kids won’t be coming home for Thanksgiving this year due to fear of spreading the virus.

He said – “Thanksgiving is going to look very different this year. I would love to have it with my children, but my children are in three separate states throughout the country and, in order for them to get here, they would all have to go to an airport and get on a plane. All three of them want very much to come home for Thanksgiving.”

However, due to his children’s concern over his age, they have decided to cancel coming home for Thanksgiving. Therefore, Fauci advised Americans to bite the bullet and sacrifice the social gathering of Thanksgiving. But will Americans care to listen to Fauci, especially when President Trump always finds it fun at undermining and ridiculing his own health adviser?



The U.S. is not the only Western country that is still struggling to flatten the Covid-19 curve after months of the outbreak – without much success. Europe’s Coronavirus fight has taken a turn for the worse. As a dozen countries reported their highest ever number of new infections, Europe’s second wave is sweeping the continent with record breaking cases.

The European Union and the U.K. recorded an average of 78,000 cases a day over a 7-day period ending on Oct 12. Over the same period, the U.S. recorded 49,000 cases a day. In essence, the Europe overtook the U.S. for the first time. Today, in less than a week, the infections across the European Union have broken the barrier of a jaw-dropping 150,000 cases a day.

In France, which reported more than 30,000 new infections on Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron said a curfew was needed. Like Fauci, Chancellor Angela urged the Germans – “Difficult months are ahead of us. How winter will be, how our Christmas will be, that will all be decided in these coming days and weeks, and it will be decided by our behaviour.”



And if a research by Australian scientists who have found that the Covid-19 virus can survive for up to 28 days (on surfaces such as the glass on mobile phones and paper banknotes) is any indicator, especially at low temperature of 20ºC, the situation could only get worse. The approaching winter – the cold weather and people’s weakened immune systems – could fuel new surges of Covid-19 cases.

Meanwhile, China, with a population of 1.3 billion, has recorded only 90,955 Coronavirus cases and 4,739 deaths as of Saturday (according to Johns Hopkins). United States, with a population of 328 million, have recorded a mind-boggling 8,106,384 cases and 219,286 deaths. Europe, with a population of 741 million, has registered 6,976,052 cases and 240,306 deaths.

One can argue until the cows come home, but the fact is, the Coronavirus can be controlled and China has shown how it can be done. To the sceptical, here’s the proof – some 637 million people (or 46% of China’s population) travelled around the country during the eight days (Oct 1-8) Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, known as the Golden Week.



The retail and restaurant sales alone during the Chinese Golden Week reached 1.6 trillion Yuan (US$235.5 billion), with daily sales up 4.9% compared to last year’s seven-day holiday. The numbers show that China, and the rest of the world for that matter, can actually revive their economies pretty quickly once the Covid-19 is brought under control – even if a vaccine is out of reach.

But instead of learning from China, the Western countries were too proud to admit their methods do not work. On Friday, China reported 13 new cases, according to its National Health Commission. The same day, the U.S. reported 70,450 new cases – the highest figure since July 24 (not to mention more than 900 deaths) – according to The New York Times.

To keep whining, moaning and bitching that China, where the novel Coronavirus was first discovered, is the evil culprit will not solve any problem. When the virus first wrecked serious havoc in China from January to February, the rest of the world looked on with popcorn. They thought it was a problem confined only to mainland China.



China’s success has been attributed to a number of factors. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of the WHO (World Health Organization), revealed that China’s success came from speed and from taking contract tracing seriously. He said – “The faster you can find the cases, isolate the cases, and track their close contacts, the more successful you’re going to be.”

When Wuhan was identified as the source of the outbreak, it was quickly isolated, with 11 million residents of the city spending 76 days in lockdown. In fact, between January and February, the Chinese government had confined 507.5 million people either in full or partial lockdown covering 20 provinces – more than the populations of the U.S. (327.2 million) and Russia (144.5 million) combined.

People were flabbergasted with news about excavators, trucks, bulldozers and hundreds of construction workers mobilized at unbelievable speed to build a hospital with 1,000 beds in just 6 days. In two weeks, two hospitals were up and running – with a capacity of 2,600 beds. Engineers were brought in from across the country in order to complete construction in time.





According to The Lancet medical journal, a whopping 14,000 health and temperature checkpoints were set up at most major transport hubs across the country. Yes, the key to China’s success was its speed and commitment to testing. Not only getting a Coronavirus test was fast, but also free. Those who tested positive were immediately sent to isolation centers or nearby hospitals.

After Wuhan, the Chinese government takes new cases very seriously. For example, on October 9, after 12 new cases of Covid-19 were discovered in the eastern city of Qingdao, the authorities declared it would do a mass testing on its entire population of 9 million people in “five days” – about 1,800,000 residents per day. That’s about the entire population of the New York City.

China’s ability to test more than a million of residents in a day is legendary and indisputable. In May, when 6 new cases re-appeared in Wuhan, once the epicentre of Coronavirus, the authorities tested its 11 million residents over a 10-day period. In what appeared to be a minor cluster by Western standard, the Chinese government was determined to hunt down asymptomatic carriers.



The campaign was not only labour-intensive, but also very expensive. But China knew the money would be well spent. Wuhan health authorities revealed that at least 1 billion Yuan (US$220 million) had been allocated by Beijing to ensure all 11 million people are tested. Even though they found only 300 asymptomatic cases and 1,174 positive cases, it makes people feel safe and increases confidence nationwide.

They have an easy weapon to instil obedience – people who refused to volunteer themselves for testing were told that they would have to pay for all their tests in the future. On the first day of the mass testing exercise in May, it processed 1.47 million tests. At the same rate of 1.47 million tests, China could test the entire Malaysian population of 33 million people in just 22 days.

In comparison, Australia had only managed to conduct about 1.2 million tests from January until May 2020. The New York state had tested a total of 1.7 million people between March 4 and June 3, something that the Chinese could do in less than 2 days. The U.K., infamous for its consistent failure to hit daily test targets, has claimed to be able to test about 300,000 cases daily.





Of course, it helps that most Chinese people remember SARS-CoV and its high mortality rate. So, while it did not take much effort to convince the people to exercise social distancing or mask wearing, two steps that are sufficient to control Covid-19, it has been an uphill task for Western countries to enforce it. It would take 7 months for President Trump to finally wear a mask publicly for the first time in July.

Likewise, the U.S., U.K. and Europe took months to admit that mask wearing was beneficial to curbing the spread of the virus. Even as late as May, the British government was still considering whether to tell the public to cover their faces in public. To add salt to injury, the Western countries were short of PPE and masks, hence making it a challenge even if they wanted to enforce it.

However, as much as the West would like to copy, China’s lockdown model is very hard to replicate in the U.S. and Europe. What is regarded as draconian and unethical lockdown in the U.S. and Europe has proven to be the working solution in China. Confined at home, residents were not even allowed to go out of their home to shop for groceries.



Instead, they have to rely on designated neighbourhood committees to make group orders for daily necessities. That’s very different in the U.S. and Europe, where despite partial lockdown and rules to wear mask and practice social distancing, young people were seen packing the beaches in the summer weather, attending spring break parties, and holding illegal raves.

In addition, the Chinese government leverages on state-run mobile carriers to track down anyone who disobeyed lockdown order. Such measure which breaches privacy will definitely invite condemnations from human rights activists if being carried out in the Western countries. But in China, nobody dares to question the authorities of the uniformed law enforcement officers.

How bad would it be for the West? The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation forecasted on Friday that based on the current projection scenario, the U.S. could expect a total of 389,087 deaths by February 1, 2021 – almost double the current death toll – if there are no changes to the current policy. In Europe, they have just begun talking about tougher restrictions.