Originally Posted by
trueblu
1.4B people under authority of a single, all-powerful centralised gov that can command incredible resources and doesn't care about other (non-pol) fall-out. Versus 6B in >190 disparate states of varying competence and autonomy and >4.5B in states with poor healthcare and other infra-structure, and the other 1.5B in countries where individualism and personal wealth take (psychological) precedence over notions of the greater good (I'm over-generalising, apologies). Not to mention orders of magnitude difference in access/ land areas/ number of cities etc
Now, if China does manage to contain COVID-19 that would be an incredible and unprecedented achievement. Unfortunately, I don't think it means the rest of the world even has the capability and resources to be even remotely close to replicating. Even if money were no object, the US/ EU and China would need to cough up maybe $10 trillion (plucking a number out of a hat) to finance this...
tb
Well I can see one possible scenario where some areas succeed in stamping out the outbreaks and prevent unabated community spread and others do not, and the world actually fragments into two different zones, with movement not allowed from the areas with unabated community spread to areas with this under control except by going through 2+ weeks of quarantine. At that point, these other zones won't have a choice. Either they get rid of it or they can't join the rest of the world again until they do.