Subjectivity and complacency caused us to miss the 'golden opportunity' to stop the Covid-19 epidemic?

The Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, first spread rapidly in mainland China and some neighboring countries such as South Korea and Japan. But now the Covid-19 situation has eased somewhat there and has become severe in Europe and the US. Now, epidemiologically speaking, Asia seems safer than both Europe and the US.

There are many factors for this situation. The first simple thing is that Asia was hit earlier and is now in the plateau or decline phase of the epidemic. Europe and the US were hit later and are now in the peak phase of the epidemic.

But the reasons for this situation do not stop there. The West did not go through the same cycle as Asia. The West had earlier and better warnings about the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

It is true that China was confused and passive in the early stages of fighting the Covid-19 epidemic, but other countries in Europe were also slow to react even though the Covid-19 epidemic situation was clear.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently confirmed that calls for social distancing to save lives were largely rejected early in the Covid-19 outbreak in the US. Mr. Fauci said the US will have to find a more effective response if the disease recurs next fall.

Last week the European Union’s chief scientist resigned over the bloc’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the novel coronavirus. In the UK, there has been a scandal over the lack of protective gear for frontline health workers.

In Asia, there is a sense of surprise that the West did not take advantage of the precious time when Asia was sick to take early action to prevent the epidemic.

Many Western countries blame China for its lack of transparency in the fight against Covid-19. However, by February 2020, the world had learned a lot about the danger and widespread spread of Covid-19, but many countries still failed to respond in time or refused to take decisive action to stop the epidemic.

Subjective mentality, underestimating risks

When Covid-19 first broke out, the disease was mainly confined to mainland China, and here, it was mainly concentrated in Wuhan city, for quite a long time.

Benjamin Cowling, a professor at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health, said that this is why there is a subjective mentality that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is less contagious outside mainland China.

Colwing added that it was only a month later, when Covid-19 broke out in northern Italy with many cases, that people realized the virus was spreading extremely quickly beyond detection.

Cases exploded in Italy in late February 2020. The country locked down the Lombardy region, then much of northern Italy. The country then surpassed China in the number of coronavirus deaths in early March 2020.

Of course, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread surprisingly quickly and widely, but many experts also agree that there is a sense of complacency among Western governments - they think that the epidemic is only a Chinese and Asian problem and will not happen within their borders.

Professor Cowling continued: “The general mentality of these countries is that if they are affected, it will be in a different way because their communities have a different culture… But the reality is that Covid-19 affects everywhere in this world.”

“Despite the fact that many scientists have warned US officials about a large-scale epidemic, little has been done to prepare,” said Nadia Abuelezam, an epidemiologist at Boston University’s Connell School of Nursing.

Ms. Nadia admitted that the reason was the lack of budget in the US health system, but the bigger factor was still xenophobia in society.

Failure to act promptly makes it difficult to completely blame objective factors.

The author of the article posted on CNN's website believes that Western governments, especially the US and UK, acted too slowly even though they knew very well that Covid-19 was highly contagious, could be transmitted from person to person, with a relatively high mortality rate, especially for certain groups in the population, and that one of the best ways to control this epidemic was mandatory social isolation.

In the US, national social distancing guidelines were not implemented until March 16, while the first Covid-19 case in the country was recorded on January 15 and signs of “community transmission” were detected in late February. The UK was also slow to impose a lockdown and “stay at home” order in late March, two months after the country recorded its first case.

This contrasts with Taiwan, which has restricted travel from mainland China since late January, and has since rolled out other measures in the weeks since to prevent the spread of Covid-19 on the island.

It cannot be entirely blamed on a lack of information. Taiwan is not a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) and does not receive health information from the WHO.

The New Zealand government in Oceania has also been praised for its response to the pandemic, implementing travel restrictions and conducting widespread testing faster than the US and UK.

The Covid-19 virus has many similarities to the SARS virus that caused the 2002-2003 outbreak. But with that past experience, the parties still have different ways of responding. Asia is more cautious, while Europe is subjective because they see that SARS did not spread too quickly and too widely two decades ago.

Thus, it is subjectivity combined with the attitude of protecting the economy at all costs that has caused many Western officials to act unrealistically despite many early and clear warning signs about Covid-19.