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China’s Fatal Dilemma

Ending the limited quarantine and falsely proclaiming China safe for visitors and business travelers will only re-introduce the virus to workplaces and infect foreigners.

China faces an inescapably fatal dilemma: to save its economy from collapse, China’s leadership must end the quarantines soon and declare China “safe for travel and open for business” to the rest of the world.

But since 5+ million people left Wuhan to go home for New Years, dispersing throughout China, the virus has likely spread to small cities, towns and remote villages with few if any coronavirus test kits and few medical facilities to administer the tests multiple times to confirm the diagnosis.

(It can take multiple tests to confirm the diagnosis, as the first test can be positive and the second test negative.)

As a result, Chinese authorities cannot possibly know how many people already have the virus in small-town / rural China or how many asymptomatic carriers caught the virus from people who left Wuhan. They also cannot possibly know how many people with symptoms are avoiding the official dragnet by hiding at home.

No data doesn’t mean no virus.

If the virus has already been dispersed throughout China by asymptomatic carriers who left Wuhan without realizing they were infected with the pathogen, then regardless of whatever official assurances may be announced in the coming days/weeks, it won’t be safe for foreigners to travel in China nor will it be safe for Chinese workers to return to factories, markets, etc.

But if China doesn’t “open for business” with unrestricted travel soon, its economy will suffer calamitous declines as fragile mountains of debt and leverage collapse and supply chain disruptions push global corporations to find permanent alternatives elsewhere.

Here’s the fatal dilemma: maintaining the quarantine long enough to truly contain it (which requires extending it to the entire country) will be fatal to China’s economy.

But ending the limited quarantine and falsely proclaiming China safe for visitors and business travelers will only re-introduce the virus to workplaces and infect foreigners who will return home as asymptomatic carriers, spreading the virus in their home nations.

Falsely declaring China safe will endanger everyone credulous enough to believe Chinese officials, and destroy whatever thin shreds of credibility China may yet have in the global economy and community. That will set off chains of causality that will destroy China’s economy just as surely as a three-month nationwide quarantine.

Who will be foolish enough to believe anything Chinese officials proclaim after foreigners who accepted the false assurances of safety return home with the coronavirus?

Air freight takes 12 to 24 hours, add another few hours for packaging, handling and last-mile delivery and that leaves 6+ days for the virus to spread to anyone who touches goods handled by an symptomatic carrier. Maybe the odds of catching the virus via surfaces are low, but maybe not. No one knows, including anyone rash enough to claim that the risk is negligible.

Еxponential virus

Еxponential virus

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Full story here Are you the author?
Charles Hugh Smith
At readers' request, I've prepared a biography. I am not confident this is the right length or has the desired information; the whole project veers uncomfortably close to PR. On the other hand, who wants to read a boring bio? I am reminded of the "Peanuts" comic character Lucy, who once issued this terse biographical summary: "A man was born, he lived, he died." All undoubtedly true, but somewhat lacking in narrative.
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1 comment

  1. Ole C G Olesen

    For once i do NOT like Your writings about a subject.
    What You write REAKS of FEAR !
    FEAR for Your Country and its ECONOMY and its NON COMPETITIVE INDUSTRIES

    Where is the COMPASSION so generously professed when other Countries are HIT by Natural Disasters ?

    NO … NOT a WORD !

    Besides .. I noticed some PECULIAR ARTICLES in ANGOSAXON MEDIA

    Well BEFORE the Outbreak of the Corona Virus in China .. some weeks in fact
    Articles aleeging that some Chinese Scientist should have stolen BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL
    from some USA BIOLOGICAL LABORATORIES

    In RETROSPECT VIEW :
    may be pre-emptive ” INSURANCE ” to NEGATE any FORENSIC Traces of a syntetically produced Corona Virus
    having Origin in ANGLOSAXON BIO LABORATORIES ?
    The Virus indeed has a very PECULIAR appearance .. as published in Scientiffic Media
    hinting to a Virus created by Science and almost impossibly shaped by natural Mutation !!!

    Any claims of the Virus being introduced by the CHINESE into their own Country , which I have seen in Anglosaxon Media
    is too far out .. any thinking Person would agree …

    FAR MORE PLAUSIBLE is an ORIGIN in ZIO-ANGLOSAXON LABORATORIES !

    HOW CONVENIENT !

    Morale : Always ask the standard Criminological Question : QUI BONO !

    Considering the RECORD of the ZIO ANGLOSAXON ENTITY for the last 200 Years
    an EVIL absolutely witjhin its CAPACITY

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