As countries worldwide struggle with containing Covid-19, it continues to wreak havoc on healthcare infrastructure despite its discovery almost one year ago. Surprisingly, its country of origin, China, has escaped relatively unharmed from the pandemic, with daily cases stabilizing near the low double-digits and with life nearly returning to normal. How has China managed to recover so well from this pandemic, as other first-world countries (most notably the United States) continue to face difficulties in controlling its spread? Here are four major reasons explaining how China has been so successful.
- Public awareness
After the SARS epidemic in 2003 that sickened upwards of 5,000 people, the general public became more wary of such potential outbreaks. Due to this previous encounter with an epidemic, the Chinese people recognized the importance of quarantining measures and the effectiveness of social distancing and face masks. Most were quick to understand that they needed to obey the rules the government imposed on them in order to minimize the death toll and survive mostly intact, especially with the SARS epidemic still fresh in the minds of many Chinese adults.
- Strict quarantining measures
As expected, the Chinese government imposed and enforced harsh measures in an effort to contain the spread of Covid-19 by forcing citizens to remain inside. All schools were closed, travel outside one’s home was heavily restricted, and everyone who was suspected to have come into contact with the virus was tested. However, this wasn’t all; many other regulations were created, some of which may be seen as excessively harsh. For example, patients in makeshift hospitals were forcibly isolated, and parents were separated from their children who displayed symptoms. Regardless of their severity, these rules were nonetheless quite effective. To sum it up, these systematic, comprehensive, and coordinated precautions, which were enforced nationwide, played a major role in slowing down and stopping Covid-19’s rampage.
- Recognized the importance of healthcare infrastructure
China’s coordinated response certainly helped in controlling the spread of the virus. The 2003 SARS epidemic led China to analyze and improve their healthcare system so it would be better equipped to deal with epidemics in the future. Additionally, very soon after Covid-19 was discovered, Chinese authorities aggressively ramped up the testing and tracing of Covid-19 and quickly constructed over a dozen medical facilities in Hubei, the province where Wuhan is located. Over 42,000 doctors and nurses were also deployed to Hubei very early on.
- Speed and efficiency
Although the Chinese government was slow to recognize Covid-19 and its initial spread, it quickly made up for it due to its speedy response. The first suspected case was recorded in Wuhan on December 8, 2019. By the end of the year, Chinese authorities had already informed the World Health Organization of its existence. Just two weeks later, on January 12, Chinese scientists identified the virus that caused Covid-19 and shared its genetic sequence with other scientists worldwide. Shortly afterwards, Chinese authorities quickly began implementing harsh regulations and taking action against the virus. Thanks to speedy reaction time and efficient organization, China was able to successfully slow the spread of the virus in Hubei, giving time for other Chinese provinces to make the preparations they needed.
To date, China has had 86,725 cases and 4,634 deaths in total. While this may sound like a lot, it is considerably low when taking the massive population of China into account. Proportionally, the number of cases and deaths are many times greater in the United States and other first-world countries compared to China. Hopefully, the United States will take a page out of China’s book and learn to prepare for and manage epidemics in the future in an efficient manner.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30800-8/fulltext
https://time.com/5850680/u-s-response-covid-19-worse-than-chinas/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7177503/
https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-US&mid=%2Fm%2F0fbp0&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html
Fantastic article Brendan. The map you display is a stark reminder that the United States is falling embarrassingly behind on safety measures and vaccine distribution. While the rigid control in China is partially due to their relatively authoritarian government, it is no doubt that the American government and people have failed on accounts that they had control over, including the four bullet points you mentioned. With regards to public awareness, SARS in China served as an almost “fire drill” for the true devastation of the pandemic, so Hubei and their 42,000 doctors were much more readily mobilized than the US quarantining restrictions. Thanks for sharing!
你写得非常好！我同意你的意见，有处理过SARS的国家（南韩，中国，日本）对新冠病毒更有经验处理疫情。你总结中国怎么处理新冠病毒疫情很有道理。
Great job mentioning the SARS epidemic! Along with strict government regulation, a majority of China already wearing masks allowed for the China population to rid of the pandemic faster. I agree in terms of population count with relation to population density, that China did a good job handling the pandemic. Although China was one of the first countries with the Coronavirus, its good to see that they are recovering from the pandemic extremely fast. keep up the good work!