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Comment by rebuilder | Hacker News Reader

My read on the Chinese reaction is the same in that they seem to be taking it very seriously indeed. But it might not be because the PRC are so worried about the disease per se. They may just be worried about the unrest and panic an insufficient response could cause. I.e. the PRC may be trying to prevent the infodemic more than the epidemic, to use current parlance.

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One interesting frame to view this through is as a stress test of Chinese state capacity. I.e. is the state able to rapidly deploy resources vastly and effectively, at the cost of very dear priorities, to achieve some key national security objective?

If I were a CPC member, I'd be pretty happy with how this has gone. It was able to turn an initial misstep into a triumph: the people I talk to tend to take the view that China got a pop quiz and scored a B+, while all the other countries around are getting the same exam take home and flunking it.

China is taking it seriously which is different from addressing it competently ... welding occupied apartment buildings shut, throwing undiagnosed into Hotel California[1] quarantine centers, randomly spraying things with who knows what, etc does not inspire a sense of efficient effectiveness in onlookers.

[1] - "Welcome to Hotel California / ... / You can never leave!"

Both probably play a role in the equation of how China and the PRC has acted thus far in the wake of the disease. I certainly don't think China is acting with some far greater knowledge of the virus than other affected states/countries. The virus genome has been mapped and the world is working on developing a vaccine (I believe I read a recent story that Hong Kong claims they developed one). Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), any kind of vaccine will need to go through phases of testing and validation to ensure its efficacy and this process will inevitably take time. That time will regrettably see more people fall victim to Covid-19.

Of course, China was also probably worried about the economic and political repercussions of appearing to the world as not being strong or proactive enough in its response. So much of the global supply chain relies on China that even having the resemblance of not being in control of the situation would have produced a far greater economic bloodbath than we've seen thus far.

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