Last week, the World Health Organization announced the COVID-19 outbreak as officially a pandemic, in the hope that individuals, private corporations, and national institutions will come together to fight the novel coronavirus. The urgency was triggered by runaway surges of new infections in Italy, Iran, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As of Saturday, Italy has 21,257 known infections, Iran 12,729, the UK, 1,143, and the US, 2,726. Two studies performed on about 500 infected patients showed an incubation period of four days and up to 10 days published in the New England Journal of Medicine, an authoritative medical journal. This result was corroborated by another published article that analyzed 1,099 patients. This effectively means the number of known infections represents that of at least four days ago. From recent data, cases increase exponentially at a rate of 20 percent per day. As such, tens of thousands of infected people could be lurking in the US — silent yet deadly. Wonky testing kits and a broken health system in the US restrain testing capabilities, further underestimating the true numbers. The infections in Europe and the US are the tip of an iceberg on the rise, and the failure to curb them will lead to an avalanche that could shatter the paltry capacity remaining in their health systems. As this goes to press, cases in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea have largely stabilized, proving highly regimented public health efforts from the top down to be effective. As much as Europe and the US were unprepared, it was also inconvenient for them to replicate China’s success.

The city of Wuhan, with a larger population and a smaller surface area than London, recorded only eight new cases on March 11. The mainland government enforced “extensive social distancing” policies in the epicenter of the outbreak. Citizens were allowed to leave their homes only for groceries and other necessities. Any activities that involve excessive fraternizing such as schooling, working, and mingling were suspended. Barricades were set up to deter trespassers. These were strictly monitored by police, local Party officials, and community volunteers. Italy has enacted a watered-down version that depends on public coordination — a hospital porter who tested positive went to a supermarket in Sicily against orders to self-quarantine, exposing the virus to many healthy, innocent citizens. The efficacy of this policy depends on two factors: the compliance of the citizens, and the length to which it is enforced. Despite leaky compliance, such a scale of citywide lockdown has never been seen in Europe since World War II. The Washington Post published a random simulation model on Saturday showing how extensive social distancing flattens the curve much better than “moderate social distancing”, which in turn fares moderately better than “attempted quarantine” and “free roam”. Experimental data implied the extent to which social distancing is imposed is likely associated with population health outcomes. Further research to establish the interactions among the health policy, the compliance of people, and the rates of infection and death is needed post hoc. To what lengths can the UK and the US go to achieve extensive social distancing is uncertain, not least when a swath of “anti-intellectual” influences fracture people’s trust in their government.

Understandably, the Chinese model is not a cookie cutter for every nation in the world, nor is it conveniently replicable. But seamless coordination and strict discipline enabled the mobilization of large numbers of healthcare workers to the epicenter of the outbreak

The UK’s most recent debacle recounts the chief scientific adviser proposing a “herd immunity” strategy. Herd immunity in measles means the whole population is protected from new infections when 90 percent or more are immune, whether by vaccination or recovery from infection. Reaching the threshold is paramount to stemming the flow, as the recovered cases act as barriers where the chain of infection reaches a dead end, a natural sort of social distancing. The protective effect is nonexistent below the threshold. Besides his spurious claim that 60 percent suffices to reach herd immunity (most infectious diseases require 90 percent), that alone would require 50 million more people to be infected. A mortality rate of 2 to 3 percent translates to no less than 1 million deaths just in the UK. And to attain the purported threshold of 60 percent, more healthy Europeans who travel to the UK will have to be infected, amounting to more cases and deaths. In fact, the herd immunity theory itself is a truism. The upshot of this pandemic storm will fulfill the prophecy in the absence of any measures. Hypothetically, if we allow the virus to roam free on earth, and people who recover outnumber those who succumb until the number of survivors reaches 90 percent of the remaining population, then new infections will cease and the pandemic wane. By then, millions of people would have been wiped out, some of whom could be our loved ones. Evidently, health ministers and public health experts are working round-the-clock to prevent this gruesome denouement. The British are barking up the wrong tree.

Understandably, the Chinese model is not a cookie cutter for every nation in the world, nor is it conveniently replicable. But seamless coordination and strict discipline enabled the mobilization of large numbers of healthcare workers to the epicenter of the outbreak. The feat of constructing two new hospitals in Wuhan within one week required the disciplined mobilization of workers as much as systematic shipment of a huge amount of resources. This was very impressive. But this is unlikely to happen in many Western countries. Recent exposes have revealed a discombobulated health system in the US. As partisanship continues to politicize basic human rights as fundamental as healthcare, people are dying. To balance the books, most hospitals — even centers of excellence — have fine-tuned operations over the years to cater to chronic diseases that generate profit. Small wonder their ossified modus operandi cannot acclimatize to such breakneck assaults by a brainless organism a billionth of our size.

Throughout history, our ancestors have proved the temerity of humankind in the face of adversity: from war to peace, distrust to collaboration, and dissonance to unity. Much of our survival hitherto demands adaptability. And much more rests on humility. Conceding blunders to people not only does them a favor by preparing them to face great challenges, but it also honors whatever principles of democracy these countries have long flaunted.

The author is a licensed doctor in Hong Kong, and a Master of Public Health candidate at Johns Hopkins University. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.