Is coronavirus quarantine in the United States working perfectly? — consider the latest from China

© 2020 Peter Free

 

18 February 2020

 

 

I am somewhat critical of American national medical authorities' response to COVID-19

 

I have already written about the practically-minded foolishness of evacuating people — who have been exposed to — or are exhibiting signs of — Wuhan coronavirus patients back to the United States.

 

In doing this, American authorities seem to think that US-based quarantine and isolation are epidemiologically impenetrable steps to take in our (oh-so-advanced!) nation.

 

What could go wrong?

 

 

Consider the following (easily foreseeable) news from China

 

From ABC:

 

 

The director of a hospital in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, died on Tuesday after contracting the virus.

 

Liu Zhiming, 51, was a neurosurgeon and director of the Wuchang Hospital in Wuhan, according to the Wuhan health commission.

 

Zhiming's death follows last week's report that more than 1,700 medical workers had been sicked by the virus, and six had died, most of them in Hubei province.

 

The United States is the first country to evacuate its citizens from the [Diamond Princess] quarantined ship in Japan.

 

More than 300 Americans, including 14 who'd tested positive for the novel coronavirus, were evacuated Monday on two flights chartered by the U.S. government, officials said.

 

© 2020 Erin Schumaker and Morgan Winsor, Hospital director at coronavirus epicenter dies from the virus, ABC News (18 February 2020)

 

 

Do you think that a surgeon and hospital director of Liu's status . . .

 

. . . would have been ignorant of taking appropriate self-protection steps?

 

Would the PRC sacrifice someone of his probable talent by thrusting him, unprotected, into the center of a highly contagious outbreak?

 

How about the other 1,700 medical workers?

 

Were they all careless?

 

 

What do you think that this news says . . .

 

. . . about the hazards of dealing with a highly contagious virus like COVID-19?

 

Do you think that spreading evacuated Wuhan coronavirus patients all over the United States is an epidemiologically good idea?

 

Do you anticipate that no one is going to make a mistake in being around these unfortunately infected people?

 

Or that, if they do, their mistake will be instantly pounced on and perfectly defended against?

 

Want to bet on the most probable overall epidemiological outcome?

 

 

The moral? — American COVID-19 response is riskier than necessary

 

Given the arguable overestimation of our quarantine and isolation abilities, we will be lucky if the Wuhan coronavirus does not begin spreading here also.

 

Mistakes are so easy to make in these situations.

 

The virus is almost certainly going to become pandemic. Meaning (among other things) that its spreads to endemicity on at least two continents. Our own is not improbable.

 

Compare the Trump Administration's trumpeted bar to immigration from Islamic countries. That "proud" moment having been taken on grounds that:

 

 

the barred folk cannot possibly be innocent

 

(just because they're Islamic, of course)

 

or, alternatively

 

even miniscule threats of harm on American soil need to be guarded against.