Tuesday open thread—Pandemics and authoritarians
As the coronavirus spreads, at last report infecting an Iranian deputy health minister, it's toll is yet to be determined. There was talk recently from China that the infection was under control. That's obviously a lie. Deaths and infections are increasing around the world; Italy's Serie A football league is canceling matches. Swathes of China are shut down, affecting the global economy as the world's factory is shuttered. Wall Street had its worst day yesterday in two years on fears of what this possible pandemic will do to trade.
Of all the places for the coronavirus to have surfaced, it couldn't have done much worse than to have engendered in a dictatorship. The Chinese have been less than forthright in their reporting of the disease's spread.
The stupid among us think that a country like China, with it's supposedly total control over its population, would be able to stamp out such an outbreak. But opacity mixed with paranoia has proven that an authoritarian regime is exactly the worst type of government to tackle such a disease. Without accurate information being disseminated to the populace, people can't make informed decisions. They're left to do what the government tells them to do, without any confidence that these instructions will keep them safe.
In this country, the Trump regime has behaved in a very ChiCom manner. It has basically done nothing to prepare for the virus hitting US shores. A report last night stated that Donald Trump didn't want to make a big deal out of the virus for fear of spooking the markets even further, which he sees as denting his chances at reelection. The putative autocrat in the West Wing is more worried about his own political fortunes than the country's well-being. Imagine any previous president, of either party, behaving like this.
If the coronavirus outbreak becomes a global pandemic on a par with the Spanish flu, we will see ramifications beyond health and the economy. The Chinese regime failed its people and the world. The Trump regime sacrificed Americans to prop up itself in November. The species' survival depends on openness and transparency, especially now that climate change will be thawing even more diseases buried in the permafrost. Such a situation does not bode well for the Xis and Putins and Trumps of the world.