Advertisement
The coronavirus was no black swan. Hong Kong and China just weren’t ready for a crisis
- Lessons that should have been learned after the harrowing Sars experience were not: diseases like Covid-19 will happen from time to time in a hyper-connected world, and the trust and transparency that will fortify a society’s response to such a crisis is lacking
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Why has the response to the Covid-19 outbreak been so panicked, both by the Hong Kong and Chinese people and their governments? Is there anything we can do to help us get through what is likely to be another difficult month or months?
Advertisement
First, we need to accept that we live in a time of hyper-global diseases. In the early 1830s, cholera took two years to make its way from India to England. Covid-19 jumped continents in weeks, just as the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak did in 2003.
Some of that might have to do with the way these diseases reproduce, but most of it has to do with the ease and speed with which people and goods move around the world.
Covid-19 is no black swan – the coronavirus that causes it was one we’d been waiting for, one that reminds us of the brittleness of globalisation. We have had 17 years to learn the lessons of Sars. Along the way, we had warnings in the form of avian flus and the Nipa virus. Businesses have had wake-up calls from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the 2011 Thai floods, both of which disrupted brittle supply chains and showed the need for more resilience in operations.
The response to Covid-19 shows above all else the weaknesses of China’s one-party model as well as its strengths. Of course, it’s impressive that hospitals can be built quickly and medical personnel mobilised.
But would all of this have been necessary if Wuhan and Hubei authorities had not engaged in the initial cover-up? No. Given China’s record of secrecy on Sars and Covid-19, can we have confidence that there will not be a cover-up next time? No.
Advertisement