So... Beijing has some new new cases of COVID-19, less than 200:
"Beijing has bolstered measures to stop the virus spreading as the cluster of new infections, centered on the Xinfadi wholesale food market, grew by another 31 cases over the course of Tuesday. China's government has now officially tallied 137 cases in the capital city since the first patient in this new wave of infections was diagnosed last week."
In response, they have gone into a soft lockdown.
(Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-coronavirus-beijing-soft-lockdown)
Here in LA County we had 19,018 new cases over the past two weeks.
(Source: https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/los-angeles-county)
Our response is to open more business up.
China cares about its economy like we do. So why are the responses in the countries so different?
They seem to be much more afraid of the virus than much of the rest of the world, not just the US.
I'd like to hear some theories on why that is. Are they just overly cautious? Is the US really underestimating the virus? The responses are dramatically different even as the data coming in seems to show that COVID-19, while deadly, is not as deadly as we feared.
My own theory is that perhaps China's health care system really doesn't have the capacity to deal with their huge population whereas Western countries are more able to do so. For the Chinese it is about keeping up appearances. It would be embarrassing to ask for aid from other countries or admit to mass casualties and so the solution is to keep the numbers low. I pulled that theory mostly out of my butt, but there is some truth to the fact that per capita the Chinese health care system is Not Good.
