https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/coronavirus-in-canada-when-freedom-is-a-liability/
Last week we had what, at least on the surface, looks like the first good news out of the current coronavirus crisis: China announced that it had finally reached the point where there were zero new cases of local transmission in the country. In Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, there were zero new infections, period.
That means this aggressive contagion can be defeated. It offers hope to the rest of the world.
But if we dig just a little deeper, the how of China’s success raises a whole new host of concerns. It took, for instance, at least two months for Chinese authorities to finally get their outbreak under control. The vast extent of the coronavirus’s spread was the inevitable outcome of what was initially a poor response, compounded by an authoritarian government’s own internal neuroses.
The Communist party politicized a public health crisis. It worried more about its own political fortunes than the lives of its citizens. It lied and dissimulated. It punished experts who raised their voices. And the contagion exploded.
Then, the Chinese suddenly shifted course. A massive lockdown was imposed, the kind only a police state can muster. Chinese citizens were not simply told they should remain indoors, they were told they must. And the rules were aggressively enforced.
Even then, it took two months for the tide to finally turn. And it’s still not over. Zero new cases does not mean the coronavirus has been eliminated. Any let up in the measures the Chinese have taken could very well lead to another outbreak. Experts are warning that the best we can hope for at the current stage of the pandemic is to keep it under control until a vaccine is developed, and that’s at least a year down the road.