The march of Covid-19
The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China rose above 1,100 this week, surpassing in just two months the 774 fatalities caused by the eight-month Sars outbreak of 2002-03. On Monday, more than 100 people died in Hubei province alone; there are now more than 44,000 confirmed cases across the country. The spread of the disease, which the World Health Organisation has officially named Covid-19, has fuelled domestic criticism of Beijing’s handling of the crisis. There was a particular outpouring of grief and anger in China last week when Li Wenliang – the 33-year-old doctor who was arrested for spreading “false rumours” after he alerted colleagues to the outbreak – himself succumbed to the disease.
As of Wednesday, Covid-19 had caused two deaths outside mainland China – one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines – and infected around 400 people in 24 countries. Almost half of those patients are on a cruise ship now quarantined off Japan. Eight people in the UK are known to have the virus; the source of all but two of the infections is a man from Hove who contracted the virus in Singapore.
What the editorials said
Beijing has accused the UK – which last week advised all British citizens to leave China if they could – of overreacting to this outbreak, said The Daily Telegraph. And maybe we have. It’s hard to tell, though, given the lack of transparency in China. If this virus had “started in Wisconsin rather than Wuhan”, we’d know everything. As it is, it’s unclear whether even Beijing is fully aware of what is happening. The “most vital commodity in any public health crisis” is trust, said The Times. Attempts to conceal this outbreak in its early stages, to avoid disrupting the Communist Party’s annual congress in early January, badly undermined that.
The virus has exposed the flaws in China’s authoritarian system, said The Guardian. The fact that Li Wenliang was punished for sending a private message to other doctors “shows how far the space for discussion has shrunk”. Li’s death has revealed a “state that is capable of lying to its citizens to save face”, even when lives are at stake, said the FT. China has lifted millions out of poverty over the past 40 years, but it needs a new governance model that offers its people respect as well as material well-being. As Li said before his death: “A healthy society should not have only one kind of voice.”
What the commentators said
When the Sars epidemic hit in 2002-03, just 6% of China’s citizens were online, said Yuan Yang in the FT; today, almost 60% are. The proliferation of social media has had a big impact, providing alternative information to the tightly controlled state media. It has led to a lot of useful citizen reporting, such as the video blogs showing the deserted streets of Wuhan – but also a lot of fake news. Many a Chinese grandparent has posted bogus medical tips online, advising relatives to dab vinegar or sesame oil in their nostrils, or to avoid wearing wool. People outside China are also panicking, said Zoe Strimpel in The Sunday Telegraph. Increasing numbers of London Underground users are wearing face masks. A plant near Angers in France that usually makes 170 million masks a year is now working to meet orders for half a billion.
Only time will tell whether this alarmism is warranted, said Andrew Gimson on Conservative Home. The virus might peter out, or it might get a lot worse. “Nobody in May 1918 had the faintest idea [Spanish flu] would end up killing more people than any other pandemic in human history.” The disease seemed at first to be very contagious, but not that dangerous. People treated it “as a bit of a joke”. Yet it went on to kill at least 50 million people. In Britain, about 250,000 people died; in China between one and nine million; in India, perhaps 17 million.
It is in the nature of these events that they can only be fully understood in retrospect, said Erik Berglof on Caixin Global (Beijing). But in the meantime, the outbreak is shining a spotlight on Chinese policymakers. They’re “not used to this attention, but it is part of China’s becoming a global power”. Some have suggested that this epidemic may be China’s Chernobyl, the crisis that helped bring about the fall of the Soviet regime by laying bare its shortcomings, said Isabella Steger on Quartz (New York). But we’ve been here many times before. Every time China suffers a calamity – the high-speed train crash in 2011 that left 40 dead; the chemical explosion that killed almost 200 in 2015; the repeated food poisoning and vaccine scandals – experts speculate that it may prove the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back. It never is.
What next?
On Wednesday, China reported its smallest daily number of new coronavirus cases since January, raising hopes that the outbreak in that country could be reaching its peak. Global stocks edged higher in response to the report, which lent weight to a prediction the previous day by China’s top medical adviser that the outbreak could be over by April. But experts said the risk in China remains great, especially as employees return to work after their extended break, and warned of the virus’s spread elsewhere.
All NHS hospitals have been ordered to create secure pods, in isolated parts of their buildings, where people with suspected cases of Covid-19 can be assessed.