Bret Devereaux

Now that Coronva-Virus has surpassed SARS in terms of infections (though, mercifully, not deaths; lets hope that holds) in China, is it safe to say that the initial praise for the rapid PRC response was premature and that, in fact, the PRC bungled this?

That is legitimately a question - I'm an ancient (Roman) historian, not a China specialist or any kind of medical professional, so I quite literally do not know. It sure seems, given the reactions (closed flights, etc), that the assumption is that this is getting bad?

Thoughts, @BeijingPalmer ?

it's very certainly looking like they fucked up the early response; the question is whether the emergency response has actually been any better. this is an excellent piece from inside Wuhan itself - https://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ …

Oh, thanks! There's a lot there. It raises a question that has bothered me too - how on earth do you feed so large of a quarantined city (only to conclude that if anyone knows, they're not telling; seat-of-the-pants logistics for 11 million people seem unlikely to succeed.)

I may know very little about China and next to nothing about medicine, but I know quite a lot about logistics. The material requirements for survival for a civilian population of 10+ million are massive. Failure to supply the city will make the quarantine unenforceable.