China and US a study in contrast in healthcare

With more than 10.2 million infections and nearly 240,000 deaths, the world’s biggest economy appears to be the feeblest healthwise. China, by contrast, has witnessed 4,634 deaths－and become the first major economy to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In fact, there was never a pan-China novel coronavirus outbreak－most of the infections were contained within Hubei province, which accounted for 99 percent of the deaths in China. In the United States, however, the disease has spread to all the 50 states－with not a single state having a death toll in single digit. In comparison, the pandemic has been largely controlled in China. There have been more COVID-19 deaths just in Bronx, New York City, than in the whole of China.

With less than a quarter of China’s population and a higher GDP, the US’ death toll is 52 times higher than China’s, total cases 119 times higher, and deaths per million 219 times higher.

Why this stark difference? The key differentiator is－which government cares more about its people, plain and simple. Saving people’s lives from COVID-19 is a top priority for the Chinese government. For the US administration, on the other hand, the economy or politics comes first.

Ironically, the Chinese economy, having bounced back, has been performing much better than the US economy. Which can be attributed to the socialist character of China’s economic and political system. Whole industries were mobilized to put the nation’s needs first. For example, before the pandemic, China produced 20 million face masks per day－about half of the world’s total. That increased to 116 million per day by the end of February, and 200 million per day by the end of March.

In Wuhan, Hubei province, two makeshift hospitals were built in 10 days, whereas in the US, nurses were forced to use garbage bags as personal protective equipment. In China, producers and retailers of face masks were warned against raising prices. In the US, senators sold stocks after receiving classified novel coronavirus briefings, allegedly to prevent losses from the inevitable decline in stock prices.

The Chinese government bestowed the highest civilian award, the Order of the Republic, to the country’s leading epidemiologist Dr Zhong Nanshan. The US administration, especially the president, condemned the country’s top epidemiologist Dr Anthony Fauci, with some people even issuing death threats to the doctor.

Soon after the pandemic broke out, China realized that strict local lockdowns－combined with widespread testing and contact tracing－was the most effective way of combating the disease. The US, by contrast, put its economy first, flippantly dismissing the idea of a countrywide lockdown.

The US’ initial Pavlovian reaction was to blame China and stoke Sinophobia, hoping to distract the public’s attention from the administration’s incompetence (perhaps also hoping that calling the novel coronavirus the “China virus” repeatedly would make the virus go away). And many US media outlets helped craft and spread this Sinophobia narrative.

The second tactic the US used was to downplay the virus itself.

Some US politicians still view the pandemic through their tainted, anti-China lens. One reason much of the West did not take the disease seriously in the beginning could be “Orientalism”, the belief that such diseases only affects those “other” people, and cannot possibly infect “enlightened” people in the West. The stunning realization that the virus knows no race or boundary came as a rude shock to many in the West. No wonder the same people who criticized China’s lockdown and other strict anti-pandemic measures later censured their own governments for not implementing strict measures early or fast enough.

Nearly 240,000 American lives have been sacrificed at the altar of an advanced but elitist and faulty healthcare system and a politicized, anti-science response to the pandemic. No one knows how many more lives will be lost by the time the virus is contained. But one thing is clear: In the US, the talk of caring about people’s lives and well-being is just paying lip service. In China, it is real.

The author is an Indian freelance commentator on global issues.

China daily