LETTER: China’s ability to stay on top of virus is inspiring

The Chinese embassy has been supplying daily statistics on Covid-19 in China since February 2. These statistics are comprehensive and China deserves a real pat on the back for what has been achieved in only one month.

It appears that the rapid move to the spike of February 12 triggered the building of two new hospitals, one with 1,000 beds and the other with 1,500 beds. As I recall, these hospitals were completed in unbelievably short periods of time, such as 15-20 days each. What an incredible decision and achievement evidently prompted by a statistic.

The statistics gathered from 34 provinces, regions and cities cover daily and/or cumulative confirmed cases, new suspected cases, deaths and cured  patients. A graph of the daily and cumulative statistics now trends downwards for new confirmed cases and new suspected cases, and upwards for new cured cases and level for deaths. The overall impression is that China has, after a period of only a month, contained Covid-19 in an incredibly disciplined manner — beyond belief, if one is honest.

Additional statistics to indicate probabilities are as follows: deaths as a percentage of confirmed cases: 3.66%; cured cases as a percentage of confirmed cases: 55.56%; confirmed cases as a percentage of China’s population: 0.00005714%. Well done, China! I can’t believe these statistics can knock trillions of dollars off world markets. If similar statistics were done for common flu, I wonder what they would show? The 1918 flu epidemic claimed the lives of millions of people worldwide. China’s losses in one month were 2,912.

Ned Sturgeon
Barberton

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