Hong Kong News

Nonpartisan, Noncommercial, unconstrained.
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Europe’s coronavirus lockdown nightmare

Europe’s coronavirus lockdown nightmare

Europe has become the new epicentre in the coronavirus pandemic as China prepares to end its lockdown of Hubei’s capital Wuhan, the city where the virus was detected late last year. It will be a milestone in China’s war against Covid-19, and could offer clues to how the disease can be beaten. Governments in Europe have responded incrementally – and now millions of people across the continent are under some form of lockdown or had their movements restricted. But did Europe act too late? Here’s how China responded to its crisis.

China has a grid-like community control system, which may have helped slow the spread of the coronavirus. Besides reporting activities in neighbourhoods to the authorities, the grid system has workers available to provide community assistance to those in need.

Like Europe, China seemed to fumble at the initial outbreak. Wuhan authorities at ground zero initially failed to report cases of the mystery illness, which cost time and lives. The city’s early response was to silence whistle-blowers like the late Dr Li Wenliang and clamp down on social media to control information.

But once China did mobilise, it imposed unprecedented measures. Movement in and out of Wuhan was halted, and the city, along with 15 others in Hubei province – home to more than 60 million people – went into lockdown. Flights and train travel was suspended and roads were blocked.

The logistics of isolating millions of people are staggering. Here, we look at how the grid system was instrumental in China’s lockdown effort.


How Wuhan is fighting the virus during lockdown

The China National Grid project is a community management programme first trialled in Beijing’s Dongcheng district in 2004 before large-scale adoption. Introduced as an efficient local management process, the system divides cities into grids, or zones, by blocks and communities.

Each grid is assigned grid controllers as social managers, who are responsible for reporting their area’s resident size to the local government. They also monitor all social organisations and activities in their assigned neighbourhoods, as well as provide help to elderly empty-nest residents and people with disabilities.

According to Xinhua, there are 13,000 grids and 8,700 grid workers in Wuhan, with each worker managing 300 to 500 households. During the outbreak, many volunteers joined to help them buy food, medicine and other essential items.

The grid system has been in place for several years, but anecdotal evidence suggests it was never taken particularly seriously until the coronavirus outbreak. The system is now running at full speed, and on February 11, Wuhan’s headquarters for epidemic prevention and control ordered all residential areas to restrict the movements of people who live there.

Grid workers also collected health data from households, such as the body temperature of residents, sometimes through WeChat groups.


Europe’s response to the coronavirus outbreak

While the virus raged in China and spread across Asia, Europe seemed to watch on as if convinced of its own immunity. Barely any restrictions were imposed in Italy after the first cases were recorded in Rome and it was not until the number of confirmed cases exploded in Italy’s Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions that Europe began to wake up. Until then the territory continued to allow unfettered movement of people between regions and international travel. But when Italy eventually decided to put the country into lockdown mode, much of Europe began to follow suit.


Mortality rate: Europe vs China

The mortality rate is the number of deaths from a particular cause. It is determined here by data made available from official sources, and doesn’t include suspected cases. The data, though imperfect, can give some idea about the severity of an outbreak in a country.

Italy has an alarmingly high mortality rate of 9 per cent, much higher than the rest of the world. This might be due to the fact that Northern Italy’s population is the oldest in Europe and considerably older than the people of Hubei. The average mean age in Italy is 45.7 years old, and about 22 per cent of the population is aged over 65, some 14 million people. It is perhaps little wonder that Italy has such a high mortality rate for a virus known to be 14 per cent more likely to result in a fatality if the patient is aged over 80. Further compounding the situation is the fact that a “strange pneumonia” was circulating in northern Italy, the country’s industrial powerhouse and home to migrant workers, as long ago as November, weeks before doctors were made aware of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China.

The first official cases of the Covid-19 outbreak in Italy occurred in Rome on January 31, where two Chinese tourists tested positive, and 21 days later the death toll in Italy exceeded all deaths in China since the start of the outbreak at the end of December 2019.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Hong Kong News
0:00
0:00
Close
It's always the people with the dirty hands pointing their fingers
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Steve Jobs' Son Launches Venture Capital Firm With $200 Million For Cancer Treatments
Google reshuffles Assistant unit, lays off some staffers, to 'supercharge' products with A.I.
End of Viagra? FDA approved a gel against erectile dysfunction
UK sanctions Russians judges over dual British national Kara-Murza's trial
US restricts visa-free travel for Hungarian passport holders because of security concerns
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Political leader from South Africa, Julius Malema, led violent racist chants at a massive rally on Saturday
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
'I am not your servant': IndiGo crew member, passenger get into row over airline meal
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Spanish Citizenship Granted to Iranian chess player who removed hijab
US Senate Republican Mitch McConnell freezes up, leaves press conference
Speaker McCarthy says the United States House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach Joe Biden.
San Francisco car crash
This camera man is a genius
3D ad in front of Burj Khalifa
Next level gaming
BMW driver…
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
×