Silver Supporter
- Messages
- 8,346
- Reactions
- 20,954
That's pretty much my own conclusion after living and studying abroad in Beijing. China took a lot of worldwide criticism of their handling of SARS, and that probably played a role. Their response, totally textbook and shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone.I will tell you what I think happened in Wuhan China, based on my experience in China and my (limited) knowledge of Chinese culture.
This is just my 0.2c and it's worth what you paid for and partially informed by the article that @DB is Here linked.
In my experience many Chinese people do not look at Western medicine or doctors the same way we do. There is a large % of the population that have an ingrained distrust in modern medicine as well as the doctors/nurses themselves. This causes them to seek alternative medical treatments that we would often mock in Western society.
I believe what happened is that as the corona virus mutated from some animal vector and was able to infect humans, it spread fairly rapidly given it's make up and mostly mild symptoms. People with pre-existing issues (pneumonia etc) turned to alternative medicine and/or were too stubborn to go to the hospital as they got sicker.
When folks finally started showing up they were in really bad shape, the medical staff probably initially thought this was their underlying condition worsening and combined with their age didn't raise a lot of initial alarm.
As the volume began to increase they realized there was likely another underlying issue and that was when testing began.
When they identified the problem as the corona virus and communicated it, it began to cause wide spread panic in Wuhan. It's almost certain at this point that the medical staff became overwhelmed by the number of people inundating the hospitals.
The truth is a huge % of those folks showed up with what were probably "mild" symptoms and when they were began confronting the doctors who were trying to trage their resources they got angry (you can see many videos online of folks shouting at doctors or nurses saying they aren't doing anything etc). As a result hospital services were likely denied or unavailable in many cases to those that actually needed it.
At this point the Chinese government tried to contain the virus by essentially isolating Wuhan. The Chinese government thought, this thing can't get to Shenzhen or Shanghai or Beijing etc.
Wuhan while large, is not nearly as important of a manufacturing hub as other areas. At that point the Western world saw what an authoritarian regime can do when they put their mind to it.
Western media basically flipped out at their response, thinking this thing has to be the next bubonic plague for them to have reacted so. That's not the case at all, the CCP would have been fine sacrificing the entire population of Wuhan (~11MM) if it meant containing the virus and not shutting down manufacturing in the more modern sectors and hurting their economy. They could easily hide the death toll if necessary and who's going to challenge them otherwise, even if the real number got out?
11MM in China is a drop in the bucket to the population, but it got out anyway because of the nature of the virus.
That's what I think happened in Wuhan, but this is just my opinion.
Good reminder that if panic like that happens here over this, your own government, even your neighbors will do the same. It won't be this disease that will do the damage. Prep with that in mind. Our government, just like theirs, is filled with know nothing, emotional, overreaction machines.
On the bright side, I am FEMA certified. I can save you all some good eats when the concentration trailers roll in.