The initial outbreak in Wuhan was so tightly clamped down that we never got to know how it was managed. But back in June, there were big headlines everywhere about a a "2nd wave in China".
What happened with that?
Nothing!
This time the information flow was not restricted and we can look back and see what was done. Beijing is a city of 20 million people.
After the initial Wuhan outbreak time lock-downs, cases in Beijing went down to zero. Everything opened back up. They had a 55 day streak with 0 new cases. Then 35 new cases were found on the first day of this outbreak.
- it was very easy to identify the source - a wholesale sea food market.
- neighborhoods using the market were put in lock-down.
- everyone was tested quickly using batch testing (more on batch testing below).
- based on test results, further targeted lock-downs were imposed while everything else was back open to normal business
- total cases in this outbreak - 335!
This is one place where fundamental democracy vs. authoritarian styles may come into play. Both USA and India are doing a pretty bad job with virus management. India at least has the ability to perform China style lock-downs, but that definitely will not work in the USA.
- Both USA and India opened everything back up just as cases were going up in most places and never got under control.
- We cannot do batch testing in both places because again we never got to the fully controlled state and positive rates are very high.
What happened with that?
Nothing!
This time the information flow was not restricted and we can look back and see what was done. Beijing is a city of 20 million people.
After the initial Wuhan outbreak time lock-downs, cases in Beijing went down to zero. Everything opened back up. They had a 55 day streak with 0 new cases. Then 35 new cases were found on the first day of this outbreak.
- it was very easy to identify the source - a wholesale sea food market.
- neighborhoods using the market were put in lock-down.
- everyone was tested quickly using batch testing (more on batch testing below).
- based on test results, further targeted lock-downs were imposed while everything else was back open to normal business
- total cases in this outbreak - 335!
This is one place where fundamental democracy vs. authoritarian styles may come into play. Both USA and India are doing a pretty bad job with virus management. India at least has the ability to perform China style lock-downs, but that definitely will not work in the USA.
- Both USA and India opened everything back up just as cases were going up in most places and never got under control.
- We cannot do batch testing in both places because again we never got to the fully controlled state and positive rates are very high.
Batch testing example:
- you take all the samples from an apartment block and do a single test. If negative, move on.
- if positive, test floor by floor samples in a single test...etc.
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