bloomberg | Scenes of chaos and despair are emerging daily from China’s Hubei
province, the landlocked region of 60 million people where the new
coronavirus dubbed 2019-nCoV was first identified in December, and where
it has since cut a wide, deadly swathe.
While cases have spread around the globe, the virus’ impact has been most keenly felt in Hubei, which has seen a staggering 97% of all deaths from the illness, and 67% of all patients.
The
toll, which grows larger every day, reflects a local health system
overwhelmed by the fast-moving, alien pathogen, making even the most
basic care impossible. It’s also an ongoing illustration of the human
cost extracted by the world’s largest-known quarantine, with China
effectively locking down the region from Jan. 23 to contain the virus’
spread to the rest of the country, and the world.
But Hubei -- known for its car factories and bustling capital
Wuhan -- is paying the price, with the mortality rate for coronavirus
patients there 3.1%, versus 0.16% for the rest of China.
“If the
province was not sealed off, some people would have gone all around the
country to try to get medical help, and would have turned the whole
nation into an epidemic-stricken area,” said Yang Gonghuan, former
deputy director general of China’s Center for Disease Control and
Prevention.
“The quarantine brought a lot of hardship to Hubei and
Wuhan, but it was the right thing to do.”
“It’s like fighting a war -- some things are hard, but must be done.”
Wuhan,
home to 11 million people, is a “second-tier” Chinese city, meaning
it’s relatively developed but still a step below China’s major
metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. It has well-regarded
hospitals, but resources lag behind those of more prominent cities.
In
the early days of the virus’ spread, prevarication and delay by local
officials also allowed the pathogen to circulate more widely among an
unsuspecting public.
