China's aggressive measures have slowed the coronavirus, but this may not work in other countries
A report from a joint mission organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chinese government suggests that China's "bold approach" has changed the course of the COVID-19 epidemic, resulting in declining numbers of new cases. However, there is a question of whether the world can apply China's success to other countries, given that the lockdowns and electronic surveillance measures were imposed by an authoritarian government. It is also uncertain whether the virus, dubbed SARS-CoV-2, will continue to spread in China when the country inevitably lifts some of its strictest control measures and restarts its economy.
The report comes at a critical time in the COVID-19 pandemic, as the number of affected countries continues to rise, and several countries have discovered that they already have community spread of the virus. However, the opposite has happened in China, where the epidemic appears to have peaked in late January, and the number of new cases has plummeted. The report revealed that about 80% of infected people had mild to moderate disease, while only 13.8% had severe symptoms, and 6.1% had life-threatening episodes of respiratory failure, septic shock, or organ failure.
A critical unknown is how many mild or asymptomatic cases occur. If any infections are below the radar, that complicates attempts to isolate infectious people and slow the spread of the virus. But on the positive side, if the virus causes few, if any, symptoms in many infected people, the current estimated case fatality rate may be too high. The report suggests that the case fatality rate varies greatly, from 5.8% in Wuhan to 0.7% in other regions.
The report concludes that the findings pose difficult questions for all countries currently considering their response to COVID-19. While the joint mission gave a unique insight into China's efforts to stem the virus from spreading within mainland China and globally, there are very good reasons for countries to hesitate to use these kinds of extreme measures.
