Why is China not seeing an increase in cases?

[ProseccoSupernova]

Or are they not just recording it?

I don't completely trust the data coming out of China, but it's interesting that no country in the Far East has had a serious death rate comparable with Europe and the Americas. That's a huge chunk of the world's population with a massive variation in culture, government and public health measures. Something else is going on

There hasn’t been a massive outbreak in Africa either, there has been some suggestions of some kind of immunity.

@RaspberryHartleys

They had a total lockdown. The virus had nowhere to spread because no-one was coming into contact with those infected. Much easier to do when there's an authoritarian rule.

I understand they also have strict isolation processes for anyone travelling in or around the country. Again, its mandatory.

While I dont support totalitarianism, one may question whether a month of total lockdown and ongoing stricter isolation at the borders would have much, much less painful than the number of deaths, time weve had under "less interfering" restrictions and damage to the economy

They had a very hard total lockdown. More importantly they used the time lockdown bought them to put in place public health strategies to control the virus as they opened up again.

The UK, together with many other western nations, has tried to emulate this in a lightweight way and has utterly failed - not because we're not a dictatorship but because we didn't understand what lockdown was for.

Lockdowns just buy time. They're like a tourniquet. You can't just remove the tourniquet and expect the bleeding leg to have mended itself, you have to actually fix the leg. If you don't do that then the patient will bleed out and all you've achieved is to prolong the agony. Or you leave the tourniquet on for too long and the leg blackens and dies.

We have a very large urban population of highly vulnerable elderly people.

They have fewer extreme elderly, and many of their elderly are back "home" in the provinces and deep countryside, whilst the younger people work in the cities as "migrant labour". Chinese cities have advanced medical care. It is probably a very different (and bleaker) story in rural areas.

Also, a growing rate of obesity, but nowhere near our rates yet.

@stairway

There hasn’t been a massive outbreak in Africa either, there has been some suggestions of some kind of immunity.

Many countries in Africa have faced wave after wave after wave of infectious disease so they know what they're doing with this one, they treated it just the same as lassa or monkey pox or polio - test, trace and isolate and make sure every single part of that basic strategy is working as well as it possibly can.

There has been some suggestion that the UK and other western nations are just too fucking arrogant to learn from low and middle income countries.

That's a lot to me.

Nigeria had over 1000 deaths. It's not like there's been no impact.

China really do not care about your privacy or civil liberties

I’d the UK did the same you’d be back at work and enjoying your freedom bar going abroad for holidays.

When people talk about 'Africa' they do realise they are talking about 55 different countries, each with its own government, demographics, social, political and economic conditions?

It's a different culture where everyone obeys the rules. Across Asia, mask wearing is normal. Nobody moans about it. Here in the West many see it as an attack on individual freedom.

In Beijing over the summer there was a serious flare-up at a major indoor market. The district, and several others nearby were locked down. People who'd been to the market we're traced, tested, isolated. It was contained.

People obey the rules and the authoritarian government (now) acts quickly.

@yeOldeTrout

That's a lot to me. Nigeria had over 1000 deaths. It's not like there's been no impact.

For example, the distance between Nigeria and South Africa is about the same as the distance between the UK and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Yet in this country loads won't download the app so we could never have a chinese style lockdown or anything similar really

The average age in Africa is half that of Europe, we are the oldest continent and that is why we are so badly hit. Age is the single biggest risk factor, your risk of death doubles every 6 years. If your average age is 19 and life expectancy is 59 (as it is across Africa) then very few people will get seriously ill from Covid-19. In Europe the average age is 42 and life expectancy is 79 so surprise surprise we have higher death rates.

Not sure if I can link it properly- the trailer of a Chinese series called Heroes in harm’s way. Despite of the political influence, it is based on real stories. Wuhan was ruthlessly locked down for the survival of the rest of the country and medical professionals flew to Wuhan in thousands and thousands to support, going the harm’s way.
Because of my profession I was privileged to personally know some of the heroes. I scheduled an interview with a senior respiratory doctor on the Chinese New Year’s eve and apologised to him for taking his time at a festive time. Two days later I messaged him to follow up on something, he was already in Wuhan having flown out on Chinese New Year’s day taking a team with him. It was very serious response. Not without sacrifice for sure.

@Langscleginspace
Do you have any articles that show african countries lockdown and quarantine etc as i Don't think a lot of these countries etc could afford lockdown for all people and even report all cases as villages are often remote etc
Some other south american countries have been very badly hit

@Langscleginspace like you so africa is huge and each country will of done it very differently and in time we will learn why some countries have less cases or more cases and less deaths etc
So you can't blanket say africa have done this or that either

@CountFosco that certainly makes sense

Because they lie, and have lied about their figures all the way through
But also because people are riled with rods of iron and know if they dont conform it’s prison or even disappearance, so they stay in quarantine hotels, if they get a case they are moved and anyone they have been in contact with are moved and isolated. They are told to wea4 masks, they wear them no exceptions etc etc

When people enter China they are put in a hotel for two weeks quarantine. At our airports they are waved through...

Population of UK: ~66.7M
Population of London: ~9M
UK coronavirus deaths: ~42.6K

Population of Nigeria: ~196M
Population of Lagos: ~21M
Nigeria coronavirus deaths: ~1K

UK deaths per million: 627
Nigeria deaths per million: 5

It's very clear which of these countries is doing better, even accounting for reporting discrepancies.

Yes, Nigeria has a much younger population, yes there is under-reporting of cases and deaths (as there is in the UK) but seroprevalence studies show that across African countries around 10% of the population has been exposed to the virus - same as Europe.

But African countries have achieved this with far fewer resources than we have. What will it take for western countries to admit we have things to learn from low and middle income countries that have been fighting and containing infectious diseases year after year, decade after decade?

Everybody yelled at WHO to 'declare a pandemic' even though it made no practical difference to the response they could make. Since their wish was granted, none of those yelling people has looked further than the end of their nose.

Grow up Mumsnet deleting my comment didn't blame Chinese people rather than the government who probably already have a vaccine.

[quote Notfeelinggreattoday]@Langscleginspace
Do you have any articles that show african countries lockdown and quarantine etc as i Don't think a lot of these countries etc could afford lockdown for all people and even report all cases as villages are often remote etc
Some other south american countries have been very badly hit[/quote]
No, most ordinary people in African countries can't afford to just stay away from work, just like most people in the UK. Most African countries can't afford a lockdown.

It's not about lockdown it's about testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine - breaking the chains of transmission one by one. Most countries in Africa have public health teams who know how to do this very well because it's just business as usual. It's not exciting, there are no 'world beating' splendid new inventions, no 'moonshots' - just dogged boots on the ground doing boring, repetitive work in local communities.

They have an app which was up and running by April. Everyone had to download it - and they use their phones there for everything, including paying in almost all shops now, so it was a case of no Covid app, then no food, no entry to public buildings or transport, nothing. In fact in most places you wouldn't even have been allowed out of your apartment block without it. Add to this the fact that mask-wearing is very common and accepted there anyway, but it was made absolutely compulsory once lockdown was partially lifted. It's not mandatory any more, as far as I know, but a lot of people will still wear one voluntarily.

Also they closed the borders, and they've remained closed except for absolutely essential reasons eg medical personnel travelling internationally. I have an American friend who normally lives in China but who 'evacuated' back to the States in February (something he now deeply regrets!) and still can't get back. All his belongings and furniture are stuck in China and his visa has lapsed. Meanwhile there's no work for him in the US (which is why he moved to China in the first place). He doesn't know what to do.

But life in China has been back to more or less normal (albeit with the app, and a very strictly enforced quarantine system for those needing to self isolate) since really very early on - late April or early May. What you need to understand about China though is that people don't travel around the country much, apart from three times a year: once at Chinese New Year (which was largely the reason the virus first spread when it did, as fast as it did), once normally at the 'Tomb Sweeping Festival' but that's on April 4th/5th so I’m guessing that got cancelled this year. And the third time is during the National Week which is the first week of October.

If you look at any pictures taken over the past week or so (and I see a lot of them, mostly from westerners who live there) you will see that the movement of people around China this last week has been immense, even if it's slightly down on normal years. So what happens over the next two weeks in terms of infection rates will be crucial and very interesting to see.

I've seen China's cases most days in the news (Reuters I think). I think largely its because China isn't the main story now. It's firmly established in all parts of the world.

Although obviously Trump likes to mention "the China virus" as much as possible to deflect from his (lack of) handling of the US situation.

They don’t report everything to the world.