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This is going to be a bit of a long read but there is a lot of relevant information and arguments to be made so there is no way around it.
There are people who make the argument that even if CCP took early decisive action, that the virus would still become an equally big global issue regardless. That something like the coronavirus cannot be contained. Coincidentally its always my Chinese friends who state this.
At first I was inclined to agree but seeing what sort of beast corona is now and what exactly we're dealing with, I think there is mounting evidence against this logic.
I personally believe that if the CCP told the world early on exactly what the disease was and given us accurate statistics, most countries would begin the procedure of closing borders with China and only allowing travel in cases were Chinese citizens would be put in quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. All imported goods would also be quarantined for the appropriate period or disinfected.
Considering that the CCP knew how bad the virus was in late December to early January, and the first spike of infections outside of China (in Korea) were in early February, this would give governments ample time to respond.
In practice, flights out of these places would be rare and everyone coming in these flights would agree to be quarantined regardless of whether they were in China or not. They would also arrive at small airports or landing strips. Not at the main airport of each city. These methods have proven to be effective with cruise ships and returning nationals. E.g. here in Australia, returning nationals are quarantined for 14 days upon arrival. We have had no known cases of infections coming in from the outside since this system was implemented.
Now this wont change the fact that some governments (e.g. the US) would still be irresponsible causing the virus wreak havoc in their borders, but countries who took decisive action in our timeline (like Australia, New Zealand, South Korea) would be largely unaffected in this alternate scenario.
Though this would still lead to small spikes of infections in these fast-responding countries, it'd be a small and rare enough that the virus could be realistically contained without having to shut the entire national economy down. Worst case scenario, you'd just have to quarantine a city or a region, not the whole country. We've seen in countries like Japan and Singapore that small spikes of infections were contained through contact tracing. That not all small localized spikes of infections will, by default, grow into a nation-wide spike in infections. Especially if you've good testing.
But when you have a case of 1000s of Chinese showing up in a place like Italy, who are travelling around to celebrate their new years, you've suddenly got a situation on your hand that you cant control. Because you're not starting with one or two infections but hundreds. That is impossible to contain.
The best evidence against this is that even responsible governments like Italy made many mistakes causing the outbreak to worsen because the situation was so unprecedented, even after they had realized just how dangerous the virus was. This is true but because of the smaller scale of the outbreaks, there would be a significantly smaller chance of a country-wide outbreak and each government would be given more opportunities to learn from their mistakes.
At the end of the day to an extent its like rolling the dice. So certain responsible countries would still have massive outbreaks but there would be less of them. Perhaps in this alternate timeline only Italy or Spain would have mass outbreaks. Instead of Italy, Spain, Germany, UK, Korea, Japan, and others all having them.
These unlucky responsible countries, along with irresponsible countries (like the US), would also be put on the travel quarantine list.
The best evidence for this is that the disease was contained in countries like Australia and Singapore. Though a national lockdown was required, we could conceivably have regional lockdowns for a few weeks at a time each time there is a small spike in infections. That is in cases where contact tracing is ineffective (although in most cases it is). This regional lockdown would have had the same effect as a national lockdown without the economic damage of a national lockdown. These lockdowns would also be less authoritative and comprehensive allowing both the people and the economy to suffer less.
We may have a case were eventually in the next year or so the weight would become too much, the dam would break, and the flood of the corona would hit the world. But in that year we would have been given crucial time to develop a vaccine while also reducing the opportunities of the virus to mutate by giving it less hosts. All the while also having more time to learn from our mistakes and being given ample time to apply our technologies into things like contact tracing apps. While also giving us more time to build our reserves of face masks, testing kits, ICU rooms, etc. And also allowing us to send more of these important to countries that are affected and are having shortages.
The negligence of the CCP is unspeakable. Even as they had banned people from leaving Wuhan and going to other regions of China, at the same time, they were still crying 'racism' when countries would close their borders and would put heavy pressure on them to open their borders back up. If that's not malicious, I don't know what is.
I think the logic the CCP had in doing this was that they knew if the virus was contained within China, their rat race to the top would completely collapse. Not only would their economy be devastated from the lock downs but trade with China would come to a halt and people would realize what they've now realized anyway, that relaying on China for all your goods/products is not smart. And China relies on a huge net export for economic growth, especially into a country like America. China was built and is being built on exports into the US. This would've been an absolute disaster for them. So they would rather watch the whole world burn with them rather than burn alone.
For the sake of not spreading misinformation:
There are people who make the argument that even if CCP took early decisive action, that the virus would still become an equally big global issue regardless. That something like the coronavirus cannot be contained. Coincidentally its always my Chinese friends who state this.
At first I was inclined to agree but seeing what sort of beast corona is now and what exactly we're dealing with, I think there is mounting evidence against this logic.
I personally believe that if the CCP told the world early on exactly what the disease was and given us accurate statistics, most countries would begin the procedure of closing borders with China and only allowing travel in cases were Chinese citizens would be put in quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. All imported goods would also be quarantined for the appropriate period or disinfected.
Considering that the CCP knew how bad the virus was in late December to early January, and the first spike of infections outside of China (in Korea) were in early February, this would give governments ample time to respond.
In practice, flights out of these places would be rare and everyone coming in these flights would agree to be quarantined regardless of whether they were in China or not. They would also arrive at small airports or landing strips. Not at the main airport of each city. These methods have proven to be effective with cruise ships and returning nationals. E.g. here in Australia, returning nationals are quarantined for 14 days upon arrival. We have had no known cases of infections coming in from the outside since this system was implemented.
Now this wont change the fact that some governments (e.g. the US) would still be irresponsible causing the virus wreak havoc in their borders, but countries who took decisive action in our timeline (like Australia, New Zealand, South Korea) would be largely unaffected in this alternate scenario.
Though this would still lead to small spikes of infections in these fast-responding countries, it'd be a small and rare enough that the virus could be realistically contained without having to shut the entire national economy down. Worst case scenario, you'd just have to quarantine a city or a region, not the whole country. We've seen in countries like Japan and Singapore that small spikes of infections were contained through contact tracing. That not all small localized spikes of infections will, by default, grow into a nation-wide spike in infections. Especially if you've good testing.
But when you have a case of 1000s of Chinese showing up in a place like Italy, who are travelling around to celebrate their new years, you've suddenly got a situation on your hand that you cant control. Because you're not starting with one or two infections but hundreds. That is impossible to contain.
The best evidence against this is that even responsible governments like Italy made many mistakes causing the outbreak to worsen because the situation was so unprecedented, even after they had realized just how dangerous the virus was. This is true but because of the smaller scale of the outbreaks, there would be a significantly smaller chance of a country-wide outbreak and each government would be given more opportunities to learn from their mistakes.
At the end of the day to an extent its like rolling the dice. So certain responsible countries would still have massive outbreaks but there would be less of them. Perhaps in this alternate timeline only Italy or Spain would have mass outbreaks. Instead of Italy, Spain, Germany, UK, Korea, Japan, and others all having them.
These unlucky responsible countries, along with irresponsible countries (like the US), would also be put on the travel quarantine list.
The best evidence for this is that the disease was contained in countries like Australia and Singapore. Though a national lockdown was required, we could conceivably have regional lockdowns for a few weeks at a time each time there is a small spike in infections. That is in cases where contact tracing is ineffective (although in most cases it is). This regional lockdown would have had the same effect as a national lockdown without the economic damage of a national lockdown. These lockdowns would also be less authoritative and comprehensive allowing both the people and the economy to suffer less.
We may have a case were eventually in the next year or so the weight would become too much, the dam would break, and the flood of the corona would hit the world. But in that year we would have been given crucial time to develop a vaccine while also reducing the opportunities of the virus to mutate by giving it less hosts. All the while also having more time to learn from our mistakes and being given ample time to apply our technologies into things like contact tracing apps. While also giving us more time to build our reserves of face masks, testing kits, ICU rooms, etc. And also allowing us to send more of these important to countries that are affected and are having shortages.
The negligence of the CCP is unspeakable. Even as they had banned people from leaving Wuhan and going to other regions of China, at the same time, they were still crying 'racism' when countries would close their borders and would put heavy pressure on them to open their borders back up. If that's not malicious, I don't know what is.
I think the logic the CCP had in doing this was that they knew if the virus was contained within China, their rat race to the top would completely collapse. Not only would their economy be devastated from the lock downs but trade with China would come to a halt and people would realize what they've now realized anyway, that relaying on China for all your goods/products is not smart. And China relies on a huge net export for economic growth, especially into a country like America. China was built and is being built on exports into the US. This would've been an absolute disaster for them. So they would rather watch the whole world burn with them rather than burn alone.
For the sake of not spreading misinformation:
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