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COVID-19 shows the new center of the world

Larry Kummer, Editor

Summary: COVID-19 might be the catalyst shifting the center of the world, as a senescent West cedes leadership to smarter and more aggressive peoples. Sometimes a crisis reveals how the world has changed.

“Listen to me and you shall hear, news hath not been this thousand year:
Since Herod, Caesar, and many more, you never heard the like before.
Holy days are despised, new fashions are devised.
Old Christmas is kicked out of Town.
Yet let’s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turned upside down.”
— Opening lyrics to “The world turned upside down” (1646).

Photo 22512167 © Feng Yu – Dreamstime.

COVID-19 is a test for nations of the world

On February 26 I wrote that China shows a future of the epidemic and the world. I wrote that the superior response of China suggested that the weight of global leadership had shifted to Asia. Events since then have provided a lot more evidence. The good news is that Japan, Singapore, and S. Korea have beaten off COVID-19. The bad news is that on March 13, the Director-General of WHO said …

“Europe has now become the epicenter of the pandemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China. More cases are now being reported every day than were reported in China at the height of its epidemic.”

America has proven itself also poorly prepared, as described in these posts.

The West not only had two months to prepare, we also had China’s example of how to contain COVID-19. These are mind-blowing events of the kind that shape history.

Bruno Maçães at Quellitte (senior fellow at Hudson Institute; Wikipedia) explains why events in Europe (and America) are so important. How we see ourselves and our society determines how we can respond to a crisis.

“The coronavirus crisis in Europe is, before everything else, a public health crisis, but it also reflects profound changes in the way the continent sees itself. Many of these changes have been taking place for a while. Previous moments such as the debt or refugee crises can be linked with the ongoing epidemic as part of a larger pattern, but the coronavirus has made everything more visible and certainly more tragic. It seems clear to me that the extent of the outbreak in Europe is directly connected to subtle questions of cultural identity …

“I should note here that the very limited number of people who have been publicly alert to the great danger facing the world – and who grew increasingly angry at the lack of seriousness in Europe or America – were almost invariably those with some knowledge of contemporary China. If you know what progress China has made and how the country is now ahead of the West on many dimensions of what constitutes a modern society, you are very unlikely to shrug with indifference when Chinese authorities lock down a major megapolis. It was serious, but no one in Europe took it seriously.”

Maçães mentions stories about the days of COVID-19, perhaps to become legends in the annals of fecklessness, marking the dying days of western leadership – unless we regain our strength and replace our clownish elites with competent people.

How did China cope?

Remember all those experts with models showing inevitable apocalyptic casualties from COVID-19? See models’ forecasts vs. actual for Shanghai – and how they stopped the epidemic. These models’ forecasts assumed (as almost all did) that no effective measures would be taken to fight the spread. This important detail was usually omitted or glossed over. Click to enlarge.

This is from a useful presentation by Wenhong Zhang, MD, PhD. He is Director of Infectious Department of Huashan Hospital and a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai (bios here and here). This is part of a presentation by three Chinese doctors on March 13, all well-worth reading.

How did Italy prepare for the pandemic?

Mattia Ferraresi at the Boston Globe describes Italy’s response and its lessons for America.

“We of course couldn’t stop the emergence of a previously unknown and deadly virus. But we could have mitigated the situation we are now in, in which people who could have been saved are dying. I, and too many others, could have taken a simple yet morally loaded action: we could have stayed home.

“What has happened in Italy shows that less-than-urgent appeals to the public by the government to slightly change habits regarding social interactions aren’t enough when the terrible outcomes they are designed to prevent are not yet apparent; when they become evident, it’s generally too late to act. I and many other Italians just didn’t see the need to change our routines for a threat we could not see.

“Italy has now been in lockdown since March 9; it took weeks after the virus first appeared here to realize that severe measures were absolutely necessary.

“According to several data scientists, Italy is about 10 days ahead of Spain, Germany, and France in the epidemic progression, and 13 to 16 days ahead of the United Kingdom and the United States. That means those countries have the opportunity to take measures that today may look excessive and disproportionate, yet from the future, where I am now, are perfectly rational in order to avoid a health care system collapse.”

How did France prepare for the pandemic?

How did Spain prepare for the pandemic?

EL PAÍS : “Women’s Day marches in Spain attract mass numbers despite coronavirus fears.” – ” tens of thousands of people across the country took to the street to protest for greater gender equality.”

“I believe that nobody thought, and I include myself among them, that this could acquire the dimensions it has taken in a country like ours.”
— Santiago Moreno, head of the infectious disease service at the Ramón y Cajal (a large public hospital in Madrid), from an interview in EL PAÍS.

Contrast that with the response in Asia

Bruno Maçães at Quellitte describes a very different response in Asia.

“I was returning from a long journey in Asia and could not help noticing the contrast. In India, or Singapore, or Vietnam, people were dramatically changing their behaviour to adapt to the coronavirus. They were going out less, avoiding large groups, taking turns on the elevator and, of course, wearing masks everywhere, even if perhaps they looked less elegant in them. The idea that they would organize a Smurf convention to have a little fun is enough to make you laugh.”

Nothing is over until it’s over. But we might be watching the center of the world shift, as a senescent West cedes leadership to smarter and more aggressive peoples.

It’s easy to follow the coronavirus story

The World Health Organization provides daily information, from highly technical information to news for the general public. These are the best sources of information.

Also, see the wealth of information at the CDC website, especially their situation reports.

Posts about the coronavirus epidemic.

For More Information

Ideas! For some shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a powerful and disturbing story about “Birth of a Man of Steel …for the Soviet Union.”

Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also, see these posts about epidemics…

  1. See the ugly cost of the next big flu pandemic. We can do more to prepare.
  2. Stratfor: The superbugs are coming. We have time to prepare.
  3. Posts debunking the hysteria about the 2009 swine flu in America.
  4. Posts debunking the hysteria about the 2015 ebola epidemic in America.
  5. Important: A vaccine against the fears that make us weak.

He predicted 9/11 and COVID-19

In his 1994 novel Debt of Honor, Tom Clancy described how a loaded civilian jetliner could become a powerful weapon – crashing down to destroy a giant building. In his 1996 novel Executive Orders, he describes how a president responds to early signs of a massive epidemic – a highly infectious form of Ebola. This is far worse than COVID-19, but illustrates a national application of the policies China used to contain the COVID-19 to Hubei Province.

Available at Amazon.

“Therefore containment is the only option,” General Pickett went on.

“How do you contain a whole country?” said Cliff Rutledge, Assistant Secretary of State for Policy.

“That’s the problem we face,” President Ryan said. “The only way to contain the epidemic is to shut down all places of assembly – theaters, shopping malls, sports stadia, business offices, everything – and interstate travel. To the best of our information, at least 30 states are so far untouched by this disease. We would do well to keep it that way. We can accomplish that by preventing all interstate travel until such time as we have a handle on the severity of the disease we are facing, and then we can come up with less severe countermeasures.”

“Mr Presdient, that’s unconstitutional,” Pat Martin (representing DoJ) sid at once. Travel is a constitutionally protect right. … {But} Mr. President, I do not see that we have much of a choice here. …The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” …

“Thank you” Ryan said, checking his watch. “I am calling the issue on the table.”

Defense, Treasury, Justice, and Commerce voted aye. All the rest voted no. Ryan looked at them for a long few seconds. “The ayes have it,” the President said coldly. …This has absolute nad unconditional priority over any other matter.”

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