http://www.bjreview.com MARCH 26, 2020 BEIJING REVIEW 19
Copyedited by Madhusudan Chaubey
Comments to yanwei#bjreview.comon epidemiologists’ projection, the U.S. will
need 55,000 to 110,000 hospital beds.
Bruce Aylward, an epidemiologist who
was part of a World Health Organization
(WHO)-China mission in February, said
China’s containment measures can be re-
duplicated but will reTuire imagination and
political courage in an interview with The
New York Times.
Trump said on March 18 that two naval
hospital ships would be deployed to help
support COVID-19 response efforts.
China’s answer to a shortage of hospi-
tal beds was to build makeshift hospitals.
In hardest-hit Wuhan in Hubei Province,
central China, two makeshift hospitals
were built from scratch in less than 20
days, with a combined 3,000 beds. Gyms,
exhibition centers and college dorms were
converted into temporary hospitals for pa-
tients with mild symptoms to curb family
transmission.
Person-to-person transmissions in
family clusters made up 78-85 percent of
the conĶ rmed cases in China’s Guangdong
and Sichuan provinces, a report by the
WHO-China joint mission on the novel
coronavirus disease shows. The first
identified community transmission case
in New York, an attorney working in the
city and living in suburban Westchester
County, was linked to at least 28 other
coronavirus patients, including his wife,
son and daughter.
Testing hurdle
The lack of testing kits and the federal gov-
ernment’s resistance to using state labs
stalled the U.S.’ testing process in February.
According to the Covid Tracking Project,
an Internet effort to track the number of
people tested in the U.S., California and New
York, the most proactive states in combat-
ing the coronavirus, make up 30 percent of
the tests performed across the country, and
many states have done only hundreds of
tests so far.
In China, manufacturers are able to dis-
tribute more than 1.5 million test kits a week,
and the Republic of Korea has the capacity to
test up to 20,000 people every day.
In Wuhan, 80 percent of patients had
mild symptoms and were curable, yet they
were as contagious as the severe cases and
the critically ill. In a guideline to countries
with coronavirus outbreaks, WHO advised
governments to “prioritize active, exhaustive
case Ķ nding and immediate testing and isola-
tion, painstaking contact tracing and rigorous
Tuarantine of close contacts.”
Between February 17 and 19, the Wuhan
Municipal Government ordered a sweep-
ing effort in the 11-million-people city and
identiĶ ed suspected cases to break the chain
of transmission. Aylward called it an “all-of-
government, all-of-society approach” that
reTuires the participation of every resident.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention has advised people to washhands, maintain distance and see a doctor if
they have the symptoms. Yet based on the
Wuhan and larger Chinese experience, more
exhaustive investigations of the patient’s daily
movement and close contacts are necessary
to curb transmission.Financial burden
After the coronavirus outbreak, Chinese authori-
ties announced on January 23 Ķ nancial support
for treating patients. Tests are free of charge,
and treatment is covered by medical insurance.
U.S. public health officials rely on people
who have shown symptoms and sought
medical care to identify patients and their close
contacts. But this strategy would work only if
people trust the healthcare system and believe
they could afford the treatment.
In the U.S., coronavirus treatment might
take a toll on average people and prevent
them from seeking care. According to the
Commonwealth Fund, about one in four U.S.
citizens is uninsured or underinsured. Frank
Wucinski, a Pennsylvania resident who was
evacuated from Wuhan along with his two
daughters in February, started a GoFundMe
page to raise money to pay for his Tuarantine
bill after going back to the U.S.
“Although I assumed all medical bills from
our time in Tuarantine would be paid by the
government, it turns out that I am Ķ nancially re-
sponsible for the six days [my daughter] Annabel
and I spent in isolation at the hospital,” Wucinski
said on the website.
Tian decided to stay in New York, afraid of
getting infected in an airport or on the plane.
Yet, she is scared of getting sick in the U.S.
again after “an infernal experience” seeking
medical care when she contracted pneumonia
two years ago. Even with her student insurance,
she is afraid of being unable to afford her co-
payment.
“We should do it in this country as well so
you know cost should not be a barrier to seek-
ing care,” Kaufman said. “Because you want
people to seek care and isolate and not transmit
to other people.” Q
(Reporting from New York City)(left) Shoppers Tueue up ahead of the opening of a
Costco wholesale store in Los Angeles, the U.S., on
March 14 in a bid to stock up on essential food and
household items amid the coronavirus pandemic
A mask-wearing New York City subway rider
on March 17, the day when conĶ rmed novel
coronavirus infection cases exceeded 6,200 in the U.S.XIN
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