COVID-19 : What Went Wrong?

"The single biggest lesson is speed. Speed is everything."
"We have outbreaks in multiple countries right now, increasing at exponential growth rates."
"And you see what that does. It's devastating."
Dr.Bruce Aylward, assistant director general, World Health Organization, Beijing, Feb.24

"In the case of COVID-19, there are asymptomatic patients."
"If these patients do not seek medical treatment in time, neither the patients themselves nor health-care workers can spot it in time, let alone control it and track and manage contacts."
Liang Wanian, senior official, China National Health Commission, Beijing, Feb.23

These were the early days of the novel coronavirus. Not in China, but as the rest of the world looked in, commiserated with the plight of the Chinese, and simply couldn't bring themselves to understand much less believe that they too, within short order, would be facing an implacable, sinister enemy intent on destroying human life. While Dr.Aylward was visiting China to get a closer picture of what was occurring, and in the process praising China for its firm hand and immediate action, warning the global community of the lethal threat and its lightning-speed communicability. the world watched but unconvinced, did nothing.

The praise heaped on China by the World Health Organization was not quite well earned. While China did indeed take steps -- eventually -- to halt the march of the SARS-CoV-2 virus internally, it bristled with outrage that the global community took steps -- eventually -- to close their borders to travellers from China, as 'racist'. China failed to act swiftly; the first cases of COVID, not yet identified other than as a strange type of pneumonia, occurred toward the end of November.

By December Chinese doctors were becoming alarmed, and began sending out notices to colleagues to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus transmission that began to erupt out of Wuhan. Their alarm was unjustified, according to Chinese authorities, who threatened them and coerced them to retract their statements. By January China was fighting a steadily rising and frighteningly deadly zoonotic and could no longer insist that nothing extraordinary was occurring.

Beijing and the Central Command of the Chinese Communist Party through President Xi Jinpeng, belatedly alerted the WHO and the global community. But not before ignoring the reality of the situation and allowing Wuhan residents to depart for international destinations on holidays, celebrating the Chinese New Year, and managing to transmit the coronavirus though asymptomatic, wherever they went.

Adalsteinn Brown, dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, says Ontario is now expecting a much lower number of COVID-19 cases this month than earlier models anticipated.

In Canada, the federal Minister of Health declared that the "public health risk within Canada remains low". A mere dozen people had tested positive for the virus at that point. No need to react, all would be well. Canada's airports were screening passengers from China, South Korea, Iran and Italy. Only in fact that careful screening the public was assured was being done, was not. In early March tens of thousands of Quebecers headed out on the March break, earlier than the rest of Canada.

They travelled to Florida, New York, Europe and other global destinations. And when they returned they brought back with them their very personal encounters with the novel coronavirus. Many were not symptomatic or not yet showing signs of having contracted the virus, and with no idea they were harbouring that highly contagious virus, passed it on to others. From Italy and Austria, COVID-19 made its entrance to Canada; a respecter of no sovereign borders.

A health worker wearing protective gear takes care of a patient at the level intensive care unit, treating COVID-19 patients, at the San Filippo Neri hospital in Rome, on Monday. Italy on Monday reported its first drop in the number of people currently suffering from the novel coronavirus since it recorded its first infection in February. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images)

As in France, the U.K., Spain, Italy and Germany, as the presence of the virus became frighteningly ubiquitous, governments issued orders for self-isolation, social distancing, the closing of all non-essential services, schools and universities and government workers began working from home. Soon workers in other industries were either working from home or laid off and unemployment began its ascent into alarming figures as the economy stuttered, balked and came to a standstill, then descended to a place no economist had seen in their lifetime.

The world is living in a truly historical time. China has generously given the pace of life and industry and environmental pollution a rest. We are now, all of us 'Living in Interesting Times', cursed by the CCP in Beijing to do so. We focus our minds and our actions on avoidance, hoping to shield ourselves successfully from the dread effects of this voracious virus that has struck down helpless health-impaired and elderly people in long-term care homes.

A member of the Canadian Armed Forces talks to a health-care worker at Residence Villa Val des Arbres, a long-term care home in Laval, Que., on Sunday as COVID-19 cases rise in Canada and around the world. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)