Making such a comparison is non-trivial; does any highly developed western democracy share China's population size and density?
I'm more curious about how this will affect India, where the population situation is more similar to China's. I haven't seen any mention of the virus there in the news, yet.
Part of the reason I had been hoping this virus wouldn't hit Florida (where I live) until summertime. It's miserably hot and humid down here from about June to September.
I tellya what, Florida real estate just went from bad to worse.
As if sea level rise swamping much of the coastal land wasn't enough, there's the so-called "silver tsunami" -- a large wave of Baby Boomers dying, and their homes being backfilled by a much smaller cohort of new retirees over the coming years.
If the virus becomes widespread in retiree-heavy areas, it's gonna compress a decade-plus of mortality into an incredibly short span. All sorts of places will be affected, but Florida is in for the worst of it.
I think this is one of the more interesting questions we get the chance to observe as things play out.
China's government is more technocratic, more pragmatic, and also more authoritarian than the US. All of those are very useful characteristics when dealing with a pandemic.
So I would expect the Western approach to result in exponentially faster infection rates, and significantly more resource shortages hindering the "on the ground" response.
I would expect that baseline levels of wellness, demographics, and tangentially related factors like climate will have a larger impact on the outcome than governance, so the US might get lucky in one or more of these areas.
I heard a podcast of the "University of Flanders" which says that dictatorships are not actually effective in this way. Reasons given (i.e. these points are all his words, not mine):
- They're often very corrupt
- It's commonly believed that Nazi Germany relieved the crisis of the 1930s, but that is propaganda and Hitler probably made it worse.
- The propaganda also paints a picture of a strictly organized state, but nothing is further from the truth. Nazi Germany consisted of cogs that didn't work together so much as against each other (the army against the party, the SS against the SA, etc.). Coordinated chaos.
- One man can impossibly oversee everything, he can't enforce his vision in all these different places, resulting in a lot of different "clans" that have power in the name of Hitler.
- Our democracy is a lot of talk and little action, lots of checks and balances, where the public can check what the government does and can remove them from power. That sounds inefficient, but the decisions are carried by the population and let's keep it like that.
Source (in Dutch) with a timestamp where he gets more on-topic (before that is more background info): https://youtu.be/_866RrJJy6A?t=600
I don't say I find it super convincing by the way, certainly points like "one man can't oversee it all" doesn't rule out the option of a group of supposedly smart people that oversee it all (much like today) and make the rules for everyone. No argument is made for democracy, the main argument is against dictatorships with weasel words like "often very corrupt" and against Hitler's dictatorship specifically (when there are more current, seemingly better-functioning and longer-lasting examples like, indeed, in China).
Of course, that I don't find the arguments made very convincing also doesn't mean that I'm in favor of a group of smart people ruling over everyone or against democracy or something.
I just don't know, but this is a datapoint where someone claims that this thought "a dictator should excel at this" may not be right. The podcast typically invites researchers in the field that are often very knowledgeable and give much more convincing presentations; this person is a historian so presumably also knows a thing or two about the topic, even if I still have some questions.
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I am interested in seeing how much more effective China's current system will be at addressing the outbreak vs highly developed western democracies.
If there's one thing a technologically advanced dictatorship like the CCP should excel at, it's this.
Based on the data the ongoing cases have been decreasing for the past two weeks: http://covid.410go.net
In another two weeks they might have less cases than other regions!
Making such a comparison is non-trivial; does any highly developed western democracy share China's population size and density?
I'm more curious about how this will affect India, where the population situation is more similar to China's. I haven't seen any mention of the virus there in the news, yet.
Supposedly the climate may impede the virus’ ability to spread.
https://www.click2houston.com/weather/2020/02/26/will-housto...
Part of the reason I had been hoping this virus wouldn't hit Florida (where I live) until summertime. It's miserably hot and humid down here from about June to September.
Also, school would be out.
I tellya what, Florida real estate just went from bad to worse.
As if sea level rise swamping much of the coastal land wasn't enough, there's the so-called "silver tsunami" -- a large wave of Baby Boomers dying, and their homes being backfilled by a much smaller cohort of new retirees over the coming years.
If the virus becomes widespread in retiree-heavy areas, it's gonna compress a decade-plus of mortality into an incredibly short span. All sorts of places will be affected, but Florida is in for the worst of it.
Only until the winter returns.
During the Spanish Flu, it was the 2nd wave the following winter that killed the most people.
Sounds like you have your conclusion without needing to wait for the results.
I think this is one of the more interesting questions we get the chance to observe as things play out.
China's government is more technocratic, more pragmatic, and also more authoritarian than the US. All of those are very useful characteristics when dealing with a pandemic.
So I would expect the Western approach to result in exponentially faster infection rates, and significantly more resource shortages hindering the "on the ground" response.
I would expect that baseline levels of wellness, demographics, and tangentially related factors like climate will have a larger impact on the outcome than governance, so the US might get lucky in one or more of these areas.
I heard a podcast of the "University of Flanders" which says that dictatorships are not actually effective in this way. Reasons given (i.e. these points are all his words, not mine):
- They're often very corrupt
- It's commonly believed that Nazi Germany relieved the crisis of the 1930s, but that is propaganda and Hitler probably made it worse.
- The propaganda also paints a picture of a strictly organized state, but nothing is further from the truth. Nazi Germany consisted of cogs that didn't work together so much as against each other (the army against the party, the SS against the SA, etc.). Coordinated chaos.
- One man can impossibly oversee everything, he can't enforce his vision in all these different places, resulting in a lot of different "clans" that have power in the name of Hitler.
- Our democracy is a lot of talk and little action, lots of checks and balances, where the public can check what the government does and can remove them from power. That sounds inefficient, but the decisions are carried by the population and let's keep it like that.
Source (in Dutch) with a timestamp where he gets more on-topic (before that is more background info): https://youtu.be/_866RrJJy6A?t=600
I don't say I find it super convincing by the way, certainly points like "one man can't oversee it all" doesn't rule out the option of a group of supposedly smart people that oversee it all (much like today) and make the rules for everyone. No argument is made for democracy, the main argument is against dictatorships with weasel words like "often very corrupt" and against Hitler's dictatorship specifically (when there are more current, seemingly better-functioning and longer-lasting examples like, indeed, in China).
Of course, that I don't find the arguments made very convincing also doesn't mean that I'm in favor of a group of smart people ruling over everyone or against democracy or something.
I just don't know, but this is a datapoint where someone claims that this thought "a dictator should excel at this" may not be right. The podcast typically invites researchers in the field that are often very knowledgeable and give much more convincing presentations; this person is a historian so presumably also knows a thing or two about the topic, even if I still have some questions.
Not sure why you are getting downvotes, your post feels largely non-partisan, and the question is interesting.
And yet when the warning signs sprung up on their dictatorship monitored messaging apps they threatened to jail the medical professionals.