Can China Treat the Coronavirus?

Given our political mania, most stories about the coronavirus have looked for the deeper meaning. People have asked whether it means that Xi Jinping has lost the Mandate of Heaven, thus, whether it means that God has lost faith in the Communist regime.

In America the stories have expressed an abiding hope that the virus will do for the Trump administration what Russian collusion and Ukrainian quid pro quos could not.

Anything that can be politicized must be politicized. It’s the new mantra of American life.

Anyway, if you read press reports you would be within your rights to conclude that China is a medical backwater, incapable of treating patients who contract the coronavirus. Ignore the fact that the nation built a 1,000 bed hospital in ten days or so. 

Enquiring minds want to know how good Chinese medical care is and how it compares with what the West can offer.

Now, a fact finding mission from the World Health Organization has returned from China. The Daily Mail reports on its conclusions. It concluded that China was better at keeping patients alive than were, say, Italy and Iran.

Doctors in the West may not be as good as ones in China at keeping coronavirus patients alive, a World Health Organization expert has said.

Dr Bruce Aylward, head of a WHO COVID-19 fact-finding mission in China, praised the 'sophisticated health care' being used in the nation.

Chinese doctors are 'really good' at keeping patients alive because they 'find cases fast, get them isolated, in treatment, and supported early', he said. 

And Dr Aylward lauded Beijing' use of life-support machines to replace a patient's lung function if ventilation fails to help.

The story continued:

Dr Aylward told Vox: 'If you look outside of Hubei [where Wuhan – the centre of the outbreak is], the case fatality rate is just under one per cent now.  

'That’s the mortality in China — and they find cases fast, get them isolated, in treatment, and supported early. 

'Second thing they do is ventilate dozens in the average hospital; they use ECMO when ventilation doesn’t work. 

But, what is ECMO:

ECMO is a drastic life-support procedure which replaces the function of the heart and lungs by pumping oxygen into the blood outside the body.

Chinese doctors have said doing this allowed the lungs, which may have become filled with fluid, of severe patients to relax and recover.

Also:

ECMO, known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, is a drastic life-support procedure which replaces the function of the heart and lungs by pumping oxygen into the blood outside the body.

Chinese doctors have said using the life-saving treatment allowed the lungs, which may have become filled with fluid, of severe patients to relax and recover.

How are Western countries doing with ECMO? Not too well, as it happens. Consider the National Health Service in Great Britain:

Ministers last week revealed there are only 15 available beds in England for patients needing ECMO, known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

The Guardian reported that an NHS England document prepared in November 2017 revealed the health system will struggle to cope if 30 patients need ECMO. 

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said those figures were out of date and there were actually 50 beds now.

I trust that you will gain solace and comfort from those numbers.

As for the advance of the virus in China, David Goldman sheds the cold light of reason on the situation. Apparently, whatever the Chinese are doing has caused the rate of infection to drop significantly. And this seems to be true even though, as Goldman points out, he does not take the Chinese statistics very literally:

New cases of coronavirus in China were running at 5,000 a day only a couple of weeks ago. The count of new cases is down to less than 100 a day, if you believe China's numbers. I don't, but the World Health Organization's declaration yesterday that the epidemic had peaked in China probably is accurate.

Just look at the world's stock markets. China's equity indices barely fluttered during the past couple of days while the US and Europe lost 3%-4%. The threat of an epidemic in Italy appears to have pushed markets over the edge.

Yes, indeed. When you want to know the facts do not listen to government statistics. Look at the stock market action.

We might not like it but the Chinese government’s surveillance state comes in handy when it needs to control an epidemic:

China' surveillance state knows where you are at all times (by tracking your phone and facial recognition with ubiquitous cameras), and whether you bought an aspirin five minutes ago. It can quarantine individuals, cities and provinces and track down reluctant patients who don't want to go into quarantine. These are repugnant capabilities, but useful during an epidemic.

In Italy and Iran things are less efficient. Of course, Iran does not believe in science. It believes in prayer:

Italy is another story. So, for that matter, is Iran, where the deputy health minister just announced that he is infected with COVID-19, amid rumors that thousands are ill. Iran doesn't have enough test kits to find out. I doubt Italy does, either. COVID-19 has been detected in 30 countries, most of them far less equipped to respond than China.