The Duck of Minerva

A quick update to my series from last week. The coronavirus has not been contained to China, and there are now nearly 1000 cases in South Korea, 270 in Italy, and 60 in Iran. Health experts and writers (see for example Ian MacKay, Devi Sridhar, James Hamblin, Helen Branswell, Michael Osterholm) now think it will eventually spread globally, meaning that containment strategies of travel restrictions will become increasingly ineffective. We are now entering a phase of having to reduce the impact and harm associated with the spread of the virus, including taking precautions at the individual...

On the same day that the World Health Organization said that there were now only 889 new cases of the coronavirus in China (down from 1749 on Wednesday), there were also reports of new outbreaks in two Chinese prisons. We also witnessed the deaths of two people in Iran (apparently from COVID-19) and an outbreak in Korea--now up to more than 150 cases--fueled by a superspreader associated with a strange cult and no known connection to China. I’ve been having quiet conversations with colleagues recently wondering when we would start to see more aggressive transmission outside of China. Between...

In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, the stories on China's quarantine and population control measures seem downright crazy, with people needing hall passes to go out of their apartments, buildings turning away residents who had been out of town, periodic temperature checks on residents, drones being deployed to disinfect villages or to shame people to go indoors or put on a mask, and health workers deployed in train stations checking phone records of visitors to see where they have been. Walking around without a protective face mask? Well, you can't avoid these sharp-tongued drones!...

If you've been following the coronavirus outbreak, you've probably heard about the Princess Cruises ship, quarantined in Japan with thousands of passengers on board. It sounds like the veritable cruise ship from hell. Of the 1219 passengers screened for the virus, some 355 passengers tested positive for COVID-19, including some 44 Americans. The Americans were finally being evacuated today after having been quarantined on the ship since February 5th. The horror of confining thousands to a boat underscores the incredible measures governments have undertaken to try to contain the virus. The...

In my first post on the coronavirus outbreak, I reviewed the nature of the disease. Here, I want to ask and answer the first of four questions I posed about whether a global public health emergency should have been declared earlier. In the next post, I'll tackle the appropriateness of China's quarantine measures, the adequacy of its overall response, and what should be done going forward.The response to the COVID-19 coronavirus has been draconian. With the lunar year vacation looming at the end of January, China shut down travel out of the city of Wuhan on January 23rd (and severely...

Even if you don't study global health, you've probably been following the coronavirus outbreak in China with a mix of dread and fascination. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower Chinese doctor, who himself succumbed to the virus riveted the world. His death was mourned in China, even as the government initially censored conversations about his passing. The Chinese government's problematic response has created one of the most significant political challenges the Xi Jinping government has faced. Today, the heads of the Communist party in Hubei province and the city of Wuhan, the epicenter for the...