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Laurie Garrett: Welcome to the Belt and Road Pandemic
(Laurie is a personal friend)
Foreign Policy
In an unfortunate turn of translation, China’s Xinhua News Agency described President Xi Jinping’s trip on Jan. 19 to Yunnan province with these words: “The amiable image of the people’s leader moved through the crowd and through the screen, infecting everyone.” It was a poor choice of words in a nation in the grips of an infectious respiratory disease epidemic.
But, in another way, the phrasing was entirely apt. China’s president isn’t literally responsible for infecting anyone, but his political agenda may turn out to be a root cause of the epidemic. By making the Belt and Road Initiative endeavor—a multitrillion-dollar program to expand Chinese trade and infrastructure around the world—the centerpiece of his foreign and economic policy, Xi has made it possible for a local disease to become a global menace.
The new virus, according to World Health Organization (WHO) scientists, has a reproductive rate of as high as 2.5, meaning each infected individual on average infects as many as 2.5 more people. That might not seem so bad when an epidemic of four people expands after a few days to 14 more cases, but when 500 cases swells to 1,750, things get serious. On Jan. 3, China officially reported 44 cases of Wuhan pneumonia; two weeks later the toll jumped to 198 cases; on the morning of Jan. 21 the government said 444 patients in Wuhan’s surrounding province of Hubei were confirmed as infected by the virus. By Jan. 23, the situation was unfolding so rapidly that WHO said at midday in the eastern United States that a total of 575 cases were confirmed in mainland China, then the Chinese government issued a new total of 644 an hour later, and by the next day the tally hit 830 cases with 26 deaths.
In hopes of limiting spread of the new virus, Chinese authorities issued a travel ban and lockdown for the city Wuhan, population 11 million, on Jan. 23. But the virus had already spread far beyond the city, and cases are emerging now in most Chinese provinces. The Chinese people awoke on the morning of Jan. 24 to learn that the travel restrictions placed on the people of Wuhan had been expanded to eight other cities, for a total of more than 32 million people whose movements are restricted. This, on the eve of China’s biggest holiday, the Lunar New Year.
But, in another way, the phrasing was entirely apt. China’s president isn’t literally responsible for infecting anyone, but his political agenda may turn out to be a root cause of the epidemic. By making the Belt and Road Initiative endeavor—a multitrillion-dollar program to expand Chinese trade and infrastructure around the world—the centerpiece of his foreign and economic policy, Xi has made it possible for a local disease to become a global menace.
The new virus, according to World Health Organization (WHO) scientists, has a reproductive rate of as high as 2.5, meaning each infected individual on average infects as many as 2.5 more people. That might not seem so bad when an epidemic of four people expands after a few days to 14 more cases, but when 500 cases swells to 1,750, things get serious. On Jan. 3, China officially reported 44 cases of Wuhan pneumonia; two weeks later the toll jumped to 198 cases; on the morning of Jan. 21 the government said 444 patients in Wuhan’s surrounding province of Hubei were confirmed as infected by the virus. By Jan. 23, the situation was unfolding so rapidly that WHO said at midday in the eastern United States that a total of 575 cases were confirmed in mainland China, then the Chinese government issued a new total of 644 an hour later, and by the next day the tally hit 830 cases with 26 deaths.
In hopes of limiting spread of the new virus, Chinese authorities issued a travel ban and lockdown for the city Wuhan, population 11 million, on Jan. 23. But the virus had already spread far beyond the city, and cases are emerging now in most Chinese provinces. The Chinese people awoke on the morning of Jan. 24 to learn that the travel restrictions placed on the people of Wuhan had been expanded to eight other cities, for a total of more than 32 million people whose movements are restricted. This, on the eve of China’s biggest holiday, the Lunar New Year.
