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Comment by beager | Hacker News Reader

Population density is a factor to be sure, but the government response was a bigger factor in failing to contain it in my opinion.

The CCP’s culture of fear and retribution pushed municipal officials to suppress reports of a novel outbreak, and pushed authorities to retaliate against medical professionals sounding the alarm.

A culture of transparency and non-retribution may have enabled China to contain this, and could have provided earlier warnings to the world to prepare for an epidemic or pandemic that might not have even happened.

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I agree with your initial reasoning, although given the long incubation period that was initially unknown I still see a high chance this would have spread either way. But

> and could have provided earlier warnings to the world to prepare for an epidemic or pandemic that might not have even happened.

Not in a thousand years. The west was sitting on their hands for almost two months, busy armchair-commenting on the CCP's failings, preparing half-heartedly at best, taking no proactive measures whatsoever. I'm utterly disappointed with my government and don't see how this would have turned out any different for us had we had twice as much time to prepare, or had this originated in a western country.

A handful of countries were able to prevent an epidemic in their own country because they responded quickly. The vast majority of them ignored the virus and claimed it wouldn't come here, and changed their tune only when it was too late.

China gave a perfectly fine head start as evidenced by countries that were able to contain it. Everyone else just wasted the head start, and I see no evidence that they wouldn't have wasted it even if China gave them a longer one.

Which countries are you referring to?

The first US case was diagnosed on Jan 19 2020. The US-China border was closed on Feb 2. Screening procedures followed later on. It is up for debate whether or not screening procedures would have started earlier if the border had closed earlier. BUT, to say there is no evidence at all that a longer head start would have helped countries is a very dubious claim.

I guess some people actually believe this. The new orientalism?

Yea, unfortunately that seems to be the case. While local level officials in Wuhan punished some early whistleblowers for posting publicly about the virus the Chinese Supreme Peoples Court said they should not have been punished.

I think China has shown a lot of transparency and has put a ton of resources towards containment.

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