This seems a little hypocritical given that the US still doesn't have an adequate SARS-2 testing regime in place, and will almost certainly see the first real rise in cases once a cluster of locally transmitted infections start becoming severely ill/dying, as in Italy/Iran. Calling China blind while we still have our eyes shut. It is possible we'll luck out and escape Wuhan-level consequences, but I'm predicting this piece may age very badly.
It's more about not wanting to take responsibility at all levels than not knowing it. Though party mouthpieces love this angle to spin the supreme leader as kind-hearted whenever possible.<p>Cersorship serves to make the people feel good, but general hospitals are almost all state-owned thus the infomation flow is not that impeded.<p>The system punishes those who take risks (right or wrong) and rewards those who obey orders, display loyalty and don't make mistakes.<p>In this case, low level officials waited for orders, the national level agency went to the site fairly early on but they too waited, here's the catch, high officials and Xi don't want to make mistakes too. The power dynamics were on display when the governor knew he's about to be sacrificed so he went on a high profile live interview to accuse Beijing of inaction, couple days later, Xi released his own version of the story, replaced the local boss with his old sport, gaining even tighter grip on local governments.<p>Every body in this system avoids doing things with the slightest possibility of harming their political careers, but doubles down on the things that make them politically safe (heavy-handed/draconian lockdown measures).
It seems like in a situation like this authoritarianism is a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, you get fed deceptive information by your local officials, but on the other hand, you have the power to enforce city-scale quarantines rather effectively.<p>It's not immediately clear to me which of these is actually more important, but it doesn't seem quite as simple as this article is portraying it to be.
As my wife and I were talking about this, one thing that came to mind was the Chernobyl disaster, which both of us saw on TV as kids when it unfolded. The CPSU also initially attempted to sweep it under the rug, and for about 3 days you could only find out about it from e.g. Voice of America broadcasts (which people would get on shortwave radio in regions which weren't covered by jamming).<p>After a few days it became clear even to the party bosses that this is not an ordinary disaster, and it can't be swept under the rug entirely, so we got some reporting from the site of the disaster, mixed with a heavy dose of propaganda. They'd show trucks, workers, views of the reactor from a helicopter (which was probably getting a bunch of radioactive dust in the air), speak of heroism of those who tried to douse the fires in spite radiation and later died of radiation poisoning, stuff like that.<p>What they did not do, however, is make any attempt at explaining the magnitude of the disaster, so while the populace was pacified by "reporting" we didn't really know its true effects until many years later.
I'm not sure I agree with this article - there is plenty of evidence to suggest that China knew about C19 well ahead of the media, but choose to ignore it to save face and/or not create panic.
I'm all for hating on authoritarians but this is nonsense. If anything, authoritarianism allowed China to build facilities and implement ridiculous quarantine measures in record time.
While I agree with the point about suppressing dissent being a vulnerability because it suppresses information, I don't think this is something democracies are so great at. The UK's response to mad cow disease, for example, does not look much better, if as good.<p>The flupandemic in 1918 was not handled appreciably better in the democracies than it was in the empires.<p>People in authority reacting too slowly to an epidemic, is not unique to authoritarian states.
This and another article today on the Atlantic seems to be implying that this type of epidemics are better dealt with in democratic countries. To me, that isn't that much clear, to see how the AIDS was handled in the United States during the 80's.<p>Even democratic governemnts are succesptible to staging coverups to save face.
This is an excellent article also showing the danger of censorship, which on HN happens via the voting and flagging system as well as shadow bans. People become afraid to speak their minds and you end up with dangerous conformity.
Hopefully we’ll get lucky with this one and it will “only” be a bit worse than the flu. We don’t know. The risks lie in the unknown.<p>But, if this thing (or some other thing down the road) is bad, then won’t democracies essentially be faced with the decision to suspend liberty in a martial-law type situation? Effectively becoming (at least temporarily) authoritarian?<p>If not, what’s the Democratic model for addressing a situation requiring mass quarantine? Seems like a good question to ask <i>before</i> facing such a crisis, even if it seems outlandish or fringe.
Claims unequivocally that the virus originated in the wet market. However, Chinese scientists are saying it possibly did originate from a Wuhan lab:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC0gww2yznI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC0gww2yznI</a>