Coronavirus II - Fallout

The ongoing corona story seems to have many angles which hitherto have been revealed to the world at large. While containing the epidemic has been the priority of everyone, some seemingly innocuous aspects have been noticed as regards China’s tackling of the disease. China’s conduct has not been exemplary during these trying times. As the disease started spreading, the countries in China’s neighborhood especially in South East Asia started imposing restrictions on Chinese tourists and business travelers. The visitors were screened for infections and even banned from travelling inside their country. China took offence to these measures taken by the countries which were basically just preventive measures. Due to the long incubation period, these countries were justified in taking these precautions. But China threatened to take retaliatory action saying that it has a long memory and will remember this kind of behavior.  In fact China has been greatly worried about its prestige and foreign image and is unnecessarily sensitive about how its citizens are being treated abroad. It is trying to bully smaller countries into towing its own line on how they should conduct themselves in this crisis.  

There is also a political angle to this. In a dictatorial system like in China, everything is done by the government. The government draws its legitimacy from the success of its policies rather than an electoral process, as in a democracy. If the population is well provided for in all respects, everything is fine. However in an emergency situation like the current outbreak, any mishandling will cause a massive political fallout as the people who have been micromanaged in all aspects of their lives suddenly find their infallible leadership making mistakes which affect them adversely. In the current scenario the Communist party of China could be fighting for its own legitimacy.

This existential crisis has made the Chinese Communist Party take offense to any precautionary measures taken by other countries. The Chinese propaganda machine has not slowed down in this crisis. In fact it has got into higher gear. One private conglomerate, namely Tencent, recently published data which showed the number of people infected and those who have died to be vastly higher than what the government authorities have been saying. The company removed that data after some time. Now it has denied publishing any such figures on its site.

The death of the whistle blower doctor Li Wenliang who first messaged his colleagues about the new virus but was accused of spreading rumors, has blown a storm on Chinese social media. There is an out poring of grief for the doctor. People are calling him a hero and are criticizing the government for accusing him, instead of listening to him in those early days when the infection could have been better contained.

The political impact of the virus seems to be worse than the human or economic one for the Chinese government. Some citizens are demanding the right to free speech. Will this grow into an online or even offline movement for more personal freedom? Only time will tell. On the economic front experts say if China can control the epidemic in a month or so the impact could be restricted to a couple of quarters. However if the disease spins out of control, the impact could be more profound. The story is still unfolding and updates keep coming 24/7. There may have to be another part to this story if the number of new infections does not go down soon.

Cornavirus I - The Show Stopper

The outbreak of the Coronavirus has been a bit of a shock to the world. There have been pandemics before, but this one looks serious. It has already affected more than 20,000 people across China and as yet does not show any signs of abating.  The number of people who have died has crossed 400. Medical laboratories, hospitals and other institutions across the world are racing to find a treatment.

The infection was detected by a Chinese doctor in Wuhan. He warned his medical school group alumni on social media about the new virus and asked them to take care. This message went viral. The Chinese authorities who monitor each and every word uttered or written on social media, arrested the doctor. He was charged with spreading rumors. The authorities obviously did not want the world to know that something was amiss. The result was, this initial clampdown on the outbreak prevented effective measures which could have been taken immediately. It took the Chinese authorities a month to acknowledge the new outbreak. The virus was already spreading then. Only after the Chinese government realized this was something which could not be hushed up, did they declare the presence of the new epidemic.

Moreover it was the holiday season and a lot of people went out of the Wuhan city area, as well as to other parts of the country. This helped spread the virus to other parts of the country. Now after almost two months from the initial outbreak the world is fully alerted and measures are being taken to contain the spread. The virus spreads by air, so close proximity to the infected person can give you the infection. Similarly confined/closed places help to spread the disease.

While diseases and epidemics are not new the world over, they are getting more severe. The Coronavirus though less lethal than the SARS, is spreading rapidly. Within a month at least 30 countries have reported confirmed cases of the virus. This just shows how much the world is integrated. International travel of course exacerbates any epidemic like this.

While measures are now being taken to control and find a treatment for the disease, another dimension to this has come to the fore. The economic fallout. Trade and commerce have been affected by disease outbreaks since ancient times, but in our world with its fast paced life everything gets magnified. This is the first time the economic fallout has made headlines in a big way. Even during the earlier epidemics like Bird/Swine flu and SARS the economics of the epidemic did not come into the picture so much as this time.

Countries have started evacuating their citizens from China, especially from Wuhan city and its surrounding area. The city has been locked down with severe restrictions on movement of people. Companies have had to stop production and distribution of goods and services. Businesses outside China have been affected because supply chain logistics have gone haywire. In today’s complex world a health emergency spills over and affects every other field. World stands to loose billions of dollars in trade especially where China is involved, because of the preventive measures which have kicked in across the globe.

A seemingly insignificant snippet of news appeared in the press regarding information about the disease. Tencent, the Chinese conglomerate has published figures which they claim to be ‘real data’. According to their data the real number of infected people are about 1,54,000 and the number of dead is around 24,000 as on 8^th of February. After publishing, this data was removed by the company. These figures are a lot higher than put out by the Chinese government. Though the authenticity of this data is yet in question, it shows that even in a pandemic situation the Chinese propaganda machine is working at full throttle.

While a clinical profile of the outbreak is awaited which will help to tackle the disease effectively, the future of human/animal epidemics may have to be viewed with some pessimism. In the history of human epidemics the corona virus is not a new story, but the latest chapter makes for some grim reading