Victoria: The Economics of Covid-19
While infections have dropped from a daily peak of about [...]
CHINESE COVID-19 QUARANTINE RULES
Under the current quarantine rules strictly enforced in Chengdu and other cities, the CFR can be kept to below 2%, but only at the cost of crippling the economy. Now, just imagine trying to enforce this level of quarantine in American cities. God help us as Covid-19 spreads.
WILL CHINA WIN THE PANDEMIC WORLD WAR?
China has been involved in the Covid-19 World War longer than any other country, so their base of knowledge is greater than anywhere else. Their harsh Communist police-state controls mean that people will obey official orders, whether to self-quarantine or return to work, as their government attempts to find a sustainable balance between the rate of infection, and maintaining an economy capable of feeding its population. I wonder if Western nations, America in particular, will be able to find that necessary balance in societies and cultures that glorify the defiance of authority. If American cities experience a rate of infection high enough to swamp their medical infrastructure, I fear that the second- and third-order effects of a Covid-19 pandemic may result in social collapse. The fractured America of 2020 bears little resemblance to the united, stoical and obedient wartime America of 1918, when we experienced our last deadly pandemic.