China, a country of 1.4 billion people...

[tecelote]

...has had approximately 85,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and fewer than 4,700 deaths.

'Just putting this out there.

[DFW]

1. Just for the record

I believe those numbers like I believe in the Tooth Fairy and Donald Trump’s genius intellect.

[abqtommy]

2. I'm with you!

[FirefighterJo]

3. Exactly

[tecelote]

4. According to a study published recently in Science, those measures succeeded.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/04/science.abb8001

WHY IS CHINA CONTAINING COVID-19 BETTER THAN THE US?

Early on in the COVID-19 outbreak, China implemented intense measures to keep people physically distant and other restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus that causes the disease.

https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/06/26/new-cases-of-the-coronavirus-in-china-leveled-off-in-less-than-a-month-of-restrictions-why-hasnt-the-us-had-the-same-success/

[DFW]

5. It relies on official government statistics

I see what the report says, but it diverges wildly from what I heard from European colleagues who were in China at the beginning of the year. They have no incentive to exaggerate what they saw, and the Chinese authorities have every incentive to minimize their reported casualties. Thus my continued skepticism.

[tecelote]

6. I have business contacts in China who say life is back to normal.

We can't say that and that is why I posted.

I don't doubt the numbers are not accurate but I do think that China handled it better than we are.

[DFW]

7. I'm sure conditions vary widely depending on location

My colleagues were in Wuhan and said the mountains of body bags being prepared for mass burial were endless. As for recent eyewitness accounts, I have none, as my colleagues got the hell out of there by April.

It’s still nowhere I’d want to visit any time soon, although I’m sure some places are worse than others.

Over here, the German Health Ministry just declared Paris and the Côte d’Azur as dangerous hot spots, and anyone returning from there gets a mandatory test and quarantine of two weeks or until the test comes back negative, whichever is first. Since virtually no Americans have been allowed in there recently, this is not welcome news. I am usually there once a week for work, so this messes up my whole work schedule until the new outbreak is brought under control.

[tecelote]

8. It seems, in many countries, the shut down was mitigated when they opened too quickly

making the shut down an exercise in futility.

We need science to dictate our actions rather than politics and commerce.

[DFW]

10. It seems that commerce negates science all too often

In April and May, to get into Paris, I needed two (French) government documents plus an invitation from my office explaining in French why my presence was needed. Plus, I had to show an EU permanent residence document. One of my Parisian colleagues said he once walked from the Opéra district to the Left Bank without seeing another live person. Usually, in that part of Paris, you can't take one step without seeing 500 people. It was beyond drastic, but Paris was close to virus-free by the end of May. They loosened up over the summer, and now they are a crisis area again. When it comes to choosing economic catastrophe or medical catastrophe, many countries choose medical catastrophe--maybe cynically because dead people don't complain or vote. Live people who are broke do.

[Nexus2]

9. Of course their cases are low.

Its their biological weapon.