by
Les May
I
HAVE no great enthusiasm for China as
a country or its politicians. Perhaps it is its history and culture
which make me feel that some of its leader think of we Westerners as
barbarians or perhaps they are truly racist in outlook. But
this suspicion does not lead me to accept without good evidence that
China failed to alert the rest of the world to the dangers of the
SARS-Cov-2 virus which arose in the country and
hence is responsible for what is happening to us.
It
is instructive to look at the delay between a
country becoming aware of the presence of the virus and imposing a
‘lockdown’.
But
first let’s clear up the story about the doctor being ‘silenced’
when he revealed the story.
‘Dr
Li raised the alarm about novel coronavirus on 30
December when he sent a
message to his medical school alumni group warning them to wear
protective clothing.
Dr Li told them seven
patients from a local seafood market had been diagnosed with a
SARS-like illness and were quarantined in hospital.A screenshot of the message went viral on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, and he and seven others were accused of "rumour-mongering" by Wuhan police who tried to silence him.’
But
that does not mean that no
action was being taken in China. This what the European
Centre of Disease Control (ECDC)
has
to say:
On
31 December 2019, the
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission
in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China, reported a cluster of 27
pneumonia cases (including seven severe cases) of unknown aetiology,
with a common reported link to Wuhan's Huanan Seafood
Wholesale Market, a wholesale
fish and live animal market.
The market was closed down
on 1
January 2020.
According to the Wuhan
Municipal Health Commission,
samples from the market tested positive for novel coronavirus. Cases
showed symptoms such as fever, dry cough, dyspnoea; radiological
findings showed bilateral lung infiltrates.On 9 January 2020, the China CDC reported that a novel coronavirus (later named SARS-CoV-2, (the virus causing COVID-19) had been detected as the causative agent for 15 of the 59 cases of pneumonia. On 10 January 2020, the first novel coronavirus genome sequence was made publicly available.
On 23 January 2020, Wuhan City was locked down – with all travel in and out of Wuhan prohibited – and movement inside the city was restricted
This
suggests that the time between the first cases of Covid 19 being
identified in China and a ‘lockdown’
being imposed was 23 days.
So
what happened in the USA and Western Europe? These figures for the
delay in imposing a ‘lockdown’
include also the cumulative number of deaths in the country at the
time it was imposed. In the case of Germany and the USA, which each
have a federal system, I have used the first date when it appears to
have been imposed in the country.
Austria
22 days, 3 deaths; Netherlands 28 days, 276 deaths; Italy 37 days,
366 deaths; Spain 44 days, 294 deaths; France
51 days, 175 deaths; UK 51
days, 379 deaths; Germany 52 days, 31 deaths; USA 60 days, 522
deaths.
NB These figures were
compiled for several sources which do not always agree with each
other.
How well do these figures for
Western Europe compare with China moving from first cases to
lockdown? We still have a lot to learn about the origins and early
spread of this virus. If western leaders made mistakes in their
response to this pandemic it is they who are responsible for what is
happening not China.
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