[Magic Fingers]

1. “Because no need to spread it any more?”
2. “No need to panic!”

1. The Chinese govt wouldn’t have a reaction of this scale just to “not spread it any more” if it’s a minor threat. They’ve never reacted that way to similar (if not worse) outbreaks (i.e., SARS).
2. I’m not panicking, the Chinese government is.

[entropy12]

I think the Chinese gov’t is doing the only sensible thing, which is to isolate the only city where most people are already infected. China being a dictatorship can do things like that even if situations which are not that serious.

Keep in mind China is still a poor and overcrowded country. That makes it easier for contagious diseases to spread. I have never been to mainland China but have heard the sanitary conditions are not so great. Only places I have visited in SE Asia are Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Singapore was amazingly modern, Hong Kong is modern but really crowded. Thailand & Vietnam have lot of poor people. If I was dictator of China, I would do the same thing...shut off the one city where most infections have occurred.

[Zhang Fei]

[I’m not panicking, the Chinese government is.]

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They’re not panicking. The hospitalization rate (a subset of which is critical care) of US flu patients in 2018 was 1.4%. The critical care rate of Chinese coronavirus patients is 25%. That’s potentially 30x as high as the US number. The death rate of US flu patients is 0.1%. The death rate of Chinese coronavirus patients is 3%.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html