Opinion : Why China’s extreme #coronavirus controls are unlikely to work elsewhere -
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/sci...xtreme-coronavirus-controls-are-unlikely-work
It is doing this using extreme surveillance measures to identify and quarantine every single new case.
Big data
vast network of community social control units
– a grid-based neighbourhood monitoring and management system that exists across China.
Real-name registration for telephone numbers and public transport such as trains,
as well as a large number of surveillance cameras,
In the first nine days after the Beijing outbreak began, 2 million people had been tested.
pool testing t
five people, with their samples grouped together.
at the cost of privacy and freedom of movement, and it is not practical outside mainland China.
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I do not agree with that.
Also it concentrates on the Beijing outbreak, not the remarkable nCoV-deletion which China did
from Jan20 to Mar10 .
We could do that tracing, it just needs personal and preparation and some measures to ensure that the data
is not used for other purposes (where that is an issue at all).
In a more severe outbreak you may even give up on data-safety, set the priorities.
As in war.
There are also ways to achieve the same things with other methods, but maybe more expensive.
It all depends on how much energy and money you throw at it.
And - in democracies - how popular that is. The population does not understand preparation
and strikt measures are only popular once the need is obvious.
So we failed to contain Italy and Irak after Feb.21 and to do better surveillance after Wuhan happened.
Because we didn't take it serious, because strict measures were unpopular at that time.
Because the public did not understand the threat.
Because the science thought, that pandemics can't be stopped and travel restrictions were useless.