Illustration by Edel Rodriguez for TIME
Charlie Campbell, Time: The Coronavirus Outbreak Could Derail Xi Jinping’s Dreams of a Chinese Century
It took eight hours for a doctor to see Wu Chen’s mother after she arrived at the hospital. Eight days later, she was dead.
The doctor was “99% sure” she had contracted the mysterious pneumonia-like illness sweeping China’s central city of Wuhan, Wu says, but he didn’t have the testing kit to prove it. And despite the 64-year-old’s fever and perilously low oxygen levels, there was no bed for her. Wu tried two more hospitals over the next week, but all were overrun. By Jan. 25, her mother was slumped on the tile floor of an emergency room, gasping for air, drifting in and out of consciousness. “We didn’t want to see my mom die on the floor, so we took her home,” says Wu, 30. “She passed the next day.”
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WNU Editor: The above is a sobering essay on how China's political system made the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic into the disaster that it is today.
Update: We shall see .... Is the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak threatening Xi's hold to power? (Ted Regencia, Time).
8 comments:
Note that the women in the story was 64. We do not know what she died of. Was it form the virus or an opportunistic/secondary infection? If it was the latter then she might have had a fair chance to live of treated for the secondary infection.
Note also that this a story or anecdotal. What is the death rate per age cohort?
I saw that the 34 year old doctor died and that was really terrible. How stressed was he (sleep). How much a viral load did he have from being around so many patients?
This reminds me of an epidemic in the late 60s in Beijing.
,,,
the great leader is using the event to tighten the social controls.
he will survive short term downside of losing a few 1000 or million to be in control ultimately.
it might be a bio weapon test too.
downside of negative western pr.
Jim,
I don't know for sure or enough to bet. If it were a test, how good is it? The US population is very diverse. The blood type proportion are very different in the US compared to China. If many deaths result not from the initial corona virus infections, but secondary infections this might be important.
Xi tightening control further? It is possible. Like the communists in the US say "Never let a crisis go to waste."
A program designed to perhaps thin out the non productive aged population.
Some people might see it that way. Some demographers might might recalculate ratios of retirees to workers.
You might consider the grandmother paradox. Just a thought.
Thanks I have never heard of the grandmother or the grandfather paradox. It is interesting read. I was thinking more in terms of state sanctioned and initiated senicide. Being a grandfather I am of course not in favour it except for discussion.
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