Shortly after returning from a business trip to China, Beth Emhoff died suddenly of an unknown infection. Her young son died the same day as her, a little later. A global epidemic is soon to emerge. The situation is extremely serious and the infection soon kills many people. This synopsis is from the film Contagion (2011) by director Steven Soderbergh. A work therefore fictitious which however echoes our world news at the start of 2020 …
Indeed, appeared at the end of December 2019, our unenviable Christmas present is a completely unknown deadly virus named 2019-nCoV. A strain of the coronavirus family (cousin of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) which had killed 646 people worldwide between 2002-2003. 2019-nCoV has proliferated in China since its epicenter, the fish market of Wuhan and has already done in the space of a month: 41 dead. The number of cases identified this Saturday, January 25, 2020, of confirmed contamination now reaches 1,287 including 237 cases qualified as “critical”, (live data map) this information is according to Chinese authorities … Information which need to be handled with caution because it is reminiscent of the fact that the Chinese government had hidden the real gravity of SARS in 2002, worsening the situation, let’s hope that the shadow of the past serves as a lesson for the action of the present …
The 2019-nCoV lung infection is transmitted from human-to-human through respiratory fluid. The incubation period of the virus is 1 to 10 days and during this period the person concerned is not contagious. Then mild symptoms (fever, chills, myalgia and cough are common) or no symptoms. It is this ordeal that we have to face the first victims of this coronavirus. The main serious victims are elderly men who already have a weakened immune system. However a victim stands out and stirs up terror around this virus: A 36-year-old man with no history or health problems succumbing to it, he is the youngest dead victim of the virus to date, the youngest contaminated victim is a 6-year-old girl. China has started the construction in 10 days of a hospital to receive treatment reinforcements and a thousand patients victims of the new coronavirus. Indeed, Wuhan’s first health services were completely contaminated by this unexpected illness. This virus is a time bomb in the sense that it falls in the middle of the Chinese New Year, considered to be the largest travel movement in the world.
To combat this invisible enemy, which is spreading rapidly inside as outside the country, the Chinese government has decided to cancel the biggest event of the year the Chinese New Year in Beijing – a major event like cancelling Christmas in Western countries – and to quarantine the megalopolis of Wuhan, the heart of the contamination, and its 11 million inhabitants. This quarantine then progressed over the entire region, partitioning nearly 35 million people by eliminating planes, trains, buses and all other means of public transport. A world first. It would be like cutting until further notice; Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands from the rest of the world. What economic impact for China, which is simultaneously in the midst of a trade war against the USA? Was this decision deserved on the facts? Do we know the real facts causing this giant isolation?
Following a three-day decision to speak in Geneva, the World Health Organization acknowledged on Thursday that it was “too early” to speak of “a public health emergency of international concern” but a ” emergency in China ”. When China accounts for 21% (1.386 billion (2017)) of the world population and 16% of world GDP (12.24 trillion USD (2017)), How should we interpret this decision?
China, which was on a bright path hoping to attract foreign investment, sees its picture darken by this virus which highlights Chinese society under a bad marketing blow: culinary habits and negligence of hygiene, power and monster influence of the government, the test of Chinese honesty and transparency, the shortcomings of a system still in development… But it seems that China faces strongly this virus comparing to the SARS, it can prove to the whole world its credibility and transparency, its efficiency in the management of a population without common measure, its advance in terms of new technologies and Data science. We must not forget that in Chinese, crisis sounds like opportunity…
The Chinese New Year 2020 which is the Year of the Rat, according to zodiac forecasts, Rats will experience both successes and failures, but on health level: ” Vulnerable to sicknesses, like colds and fatigue, the Rat will have to be extra careful in 2020. At the first sign of symptoms, head to your general practitioner immediately. ” Happy New Year…
