All states have system inertia. The quarantine failed only because that same system inertia created it too late. In the natural world, it's success would always be measured by how fast it was placed. And of course that incubation wasn't understood. The ship was a test tube. Probably told us the real infection rate within closed systems. They were breathing recycled air. It didn't tell us anything about the virus in any other case. The moral and political issues waste good energy better spent elsewhere. It's not China's move...it's the west's turn. It. China, might venture to ask. China must be offered the financial aid large enough w/o strings attached that allow them to maintain the quarantine. And it should be done now. Simple. The Marshall Plan China. Of course that won't happen, not from this version of the west anyway. It really wouldn't be that much money. We just print the shit anyway. But, if not, I could easily see a political hurricane coming. And history always repeats itself, and people and societies usually use solutions common to their vocabulary. No way it would become a real capitalist surrogate. @Vitaliy ....perhaps the term protectorate has too many connotations ,some of them legal, because there are already US Protectorates, like Puerto Rico. Hawaii and Alaska were Us Protectorates within my lifetime. Anyway surrogate is closer, and I still think people chose what they know....and death make people think alot about fonder times, even reading the little red book.

too fast, too slow doesn't satisfy the vultures. They have researched you and me...nothing. We are all guessing :) If China is doing everything wrong wait and see what happens when the pandemic comes to US MCA countries where people have guns and people hate "totalitarian mechanisms". Won't look pretty :( Facebook and Youtube are already going after outspoken citzizens! To counter personal views of the COVID crisis, on some China based vloggers, youtube places a WHO link encouraging viewers to find out the official COVID story.

Maitreya Bhakal, writer in India looks at language bias used in Western media about China

• China doesn't treat patients, it "rounds them up"
• China doesn't enforce quarantines, "it enforces "lockdowns"
• China doesn't revise counting methodologies, it "under-reports" cases
• China doesn't prevent people from shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, it "censors free speech"
• China doesn't requisition private hospitals during a health emergency by passing laws, it "seizes" them
• China doesn't fire officials, it "purges" them
• Chinese leaders don't strengthen laws, they "concentrate power"
• Corrupt Chinese officials don't get convicted for corruption, they "lose power struggles"
• Chinese media doesn't report news, it reports "propaganda"
• Chinese companies don't innovate, they "steal IP"
• Chinese people are not patriotic, they're "brainwashed"
• China's government doesn't face governance challenges, they face "threats" to their rule

@jleo

I want to remind that US has much smaller density of population, even in most populated areas.

Also in US it is much more people who work remotely and most of people travel using their cars.

Also it is 10-20x less very big factories and similar areas.

@kurth

Lot of this is possible to move to distant work if it'll be real requirement.

Public transport in US is good and comparable to Chinese only in few cities (and even in them it is sometimes white spots). Long distance transport as high speed trains is horrible in US (except planes).

Modern Chinese cities are MUCH more dense than India and can't be compared to any US city.

Like SARS and MERS, this might just blow away in a few months, and come back next year as WHO stated...

It differs a lot, this is why China government and WHO is acting more like disinformation agents now.

@Vitaliy ...what ? Mumbai is the most densely populated city on earth. Haven't been ? Also there's almost zero public transportation in the US. City buses are scarce. Everyone owns a car. It's the first thing an immigrant buys , after room and food.

Possible scenery for China, looking at internal politics and economics.

Government will be forced to push people into work.

In March it will start to become administrative measures and possible some food rationing for workers only.

As it'll be increasingly more ill and dead, ruling government will try to openly take capitalists side pushing all propaganda machine into this.

At this stage we can see both coup attempts from the left (based on proletariat interests) and the right (openly going in the interests of western and domestic capitalists turn into fascist state).

May be we have socialism in China?

Well, not much, as 90% of all business owners behave fully according to their class membership - as capitalists.

They plan to put all pressure on their workers, it won't be any payment on most of the firms, or reduced 20-25% on best of them. And they actually do not care how workers will live in such situation. None of my business is their usual answer.

And among ordinary workers popularity of Cultural Revolution and solutions offered by it is rising with each day. Big danger lies within this thing.

"There are two classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie... And whoever isn't on one side is on the other".

J. Reed

It seems like Chinese elites forgot

In a capitalist country it is possible to stand for capital and it is possible to stand for labour, but it is impossible to stand for long in between.

V.Lenin

And it can end in big tragedy for them.

As I said, lot of small to medium businesses won't make it past virus outbreak

Smaller employers account for 99.8% of registered companies in China and employ 79.4% of workers, according to the latest official statistics. They contribute more than 60% of gross domestic product and, for the government, more than 50% of tax revenue

Yet, only about 25% of people had returned to work in China's tier-one cities.

The Shandong CDC daily new infection numbers ranged from being 1.36 times to 52 times greater than the officially published data by the Shandong health commission and China’s National Health Commission.

As of Feb. 25, the Shandong government stated that there were a total of 755 infections in the province. But the internal document showed that 1,992 people had tested positive for the virus via nucleic acid testing as of Feb. 23.

Chinese media now in total crackdown state, reporting only mostly positing things, asking people to go to work.

90% of people I talked with (and know for long) do not believe official media now.

On the supplier side, we have suppliers — you know, iPhone is built everywhere in the world. We have key components coming from the United States, we have key parts that are in China, and so on and so forth.

When you look at the parts that are done in China, we have reopened factories, so the factories were able to work through the conditions to reopen. They’re reopening.

Big guys wrote the numbers they want.