There’s no way the Chinese government is going to lockdown so many cities and look this ridiculous if this isn’t way more serious than they are suggesting. You’re talking billions of dollars in lost economic activity, multiple humiliations on the world stage, and complete panic by the average citizen. There’s no way the Chinese government would go this far if there wasn’t something very bad about this outbreak they aren’t telling the rest of the world.
The problem could be much worse than has been admitted.
Call me paranoid, but my guess is that the virus was being developed as a bioweapon, researchers are going to discover something way off about it as they work towards a cure. Or it's antibiotic resistant. In China, you can literally buy antibiotics by the handful out of open containers, they're cheap and regularly abused.
While it would be nice for this to blow over, I suspect that's not going to happen.
If corona establishes any kind of a serious foothold in America, lax immigration enforcement will be 100% to blame. Nobody in America is eating uma delicia bat soup. It will be our government’s fault, 100%. I’m at a loss as to why America hasn’t issued a travel ban when China is shutting down theatres, food chains, Disneyland, and blocking off major cities. Something simply is not adding up here.
Decisions like that are made after there's clear and compelling evidence of need. The government can't shut down commerce at that scale based on a hunch.
Give them a week or two. We have FEMA camps ready to go if it does hit pandemic levels.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like Chinese are royally fucked, but since the rest of us actually practice basic hygiene and don't eat/fuck bats, we should be fine right?
Basic hygiene practices are no defense against an airborne pathogen. Washing your hands, rubbing down doorknobs, wearing a mask, etc are all good measures, but not certain to stop the spread.
A vaccine is necessary to stop the Wuhan Virus (or WARS.) Assuming we are able to track down all the strains - viruses like this mutate quickly - we're a few months away from a prototype. Ensuring that it works for a global population is a huge challenge, will likely take 9 months to a year to have something safe and effective ready for mass production. That's assuming drug manufacturers in the West decide to produce it at a cost countries are able to afford, it's entirely possible the vaccine would cost $100 a dose. That would be cheap compared to Ebola treatments.
The way in which China is fucked is that they are providers to the world. This isn't the first lethal plague to come from the East, Belt and Road will be compromised if this does hit the 100k mortality figure. Think of it this way: SARS resulted in billions in economic damage, WARS appears to be much more lethal. The CCP claimed 6% growth last year, which is not believed by most financiers and was the lowest figure in 20 years. If this cuts their economy down to 2% or 3% for next year, heads will roll.