What Will America’s Curve Look Like?
By now, we know that social distancing is the key to combat the current coronavirus crisis in the US. Many Americans have been “staying home” for three or four weeks by now.
When the question “how long do we have to stay home?” arises, we need to take a look at the two countries that have been through this part of the curve just weeks before us: Italy and China.
On January 23rd, when the number of coronavirus cases reached hundreds in the city of Wuhan, the government issued a lockdown order, essentially banning all travels from Wuhan. Within about a week, the Hubei province and pretty much the rest of the nation was in lock down. This government order was reinforced by local police forces and residential organizations where people live. The majority of Chinese people did not even step outside for the entire months of February and March. Groceries, medicine, and other essentials were brought to their doors by designated workers of the government.
As a result of this authoritarian approach, the number of new cases reported soon reached its peak, then decreased rapidly. If beginning of February marked the darkest hour of the coronavirus pandemic in China with thousands of new cases being reported daily, the end of tunnel was seen the last week of February, with number of new cases were under a tenth of the average peak numbers. Finally, by the end of March, the reported new cases were dwindling towards zero, a remarkable feat for a country with 1.4 billion people.
Thousands of miles away, Italy became the first European country to encounter a deathly blow from coronavirus. By March 9th, more than ten thousand coronavirus cases were confirmed in the country and the government extended the lock down order from the northern part of the country to the entire nation.
While Italy’s numbers of new cases reached its peak within 2 weeks of a nationwide lockdown, just like China, it has not seen the same sharp decline of the curve. In fact, although the hospitalization and death toll has been in a downward trend, the reported new cases has been up and down, with the most recent number still hovering around more than the half of the peak numbers.
Why? Even with a cloud of doubt surrounding the accuracy of the published numbers from China, everyone can see the images of Wuhan reopening this week. If we give China the benefit of the doubt and assume that the numbers are relatively accurate, then why the huge discrepancy between the curve in Italy and the curve in China? Why was China able to get the crisis under control within a month while Italy is still struggling after one month of a national lock down?
The answer: not all lockdowns are created equal.
China was in a complete lockdown under the iron fist of a determined government, movement being blocked and severely punished from the very start. The story of an Australian Chinese woman being kicked out of the country for going on a run in Beijing during quarantine is not the only example of such harsh measures being taken in China.
But from stories reported from Italy, people were still moving around quite a bit after the lockdown order. This general disobedience prompted the government to tighten restrictions during the lockdown serval times with higher fines each time issued for violations. Still, on March 20th, the government issued even more regulations on free movement which banned “open-air sports and running, except individually and in close proximity of one’s residence.” Parks, playgrounds and other public areas were closed down. Most recently, some Italians are calling for even stricter social distancing policies to curb the seemly unending stream of new cases.
Compared with China and even Italy, there is no “lockdown” in the US. That would be too offensive to the country that prides itself in its freedom and liberty for every citizen. “Shelter in place,” “it’s better to stay home,” and “stop non-essential activities,” are the loosely issued social distancing guidelines and directives from our government.
We all know that social distancing in the US has not been guided by a uniformed approach from the federal government but instead by individual state interpretations. In fact, in my community, every parking lot is full with people grocery shopping and picking up medicine and other essentials. Even exercise is deemed okay around one’s own neighborhood. In New York, the epicenter of the American coronavirus outbreak, the subway is still open for business as Governer Cuomo deemed it essential for health care workers in their daily commute to work. But who is checking if the riders are all essential workers?
In the end, do we want our curve to look more like China’s or Italy’s? Or worse?
This is a country that is struggling with preserving its people’s personal rights while trying to stop the giant invisible monster of a virus. We have been eagerly informed that the curve has been “flattened” with our current social distancing efforts. But now is the time to decide the rest of our curve.
