People in China do not have heat in apartment buildings. They wear more clothes. Most have a/c units for summer, or plug in heaters, but not central air as we are accustomed to here in the US. In the cities, electricity is very cheap.
It’s the question of food now - workers aren’t in the fields, or at the docks to receive goods. Trucks are allowed to transport food, but their internal supply chain for basic goods is down.
This is going to be a huge humanitarian crisis at the very least in China. Let’s hope that’s all it is, and that it remains mostly in Asia.
We have many advantages here - better hygiene, less smoking, fewer people handle cash, and less density of humans. If it gets loose here, we are less likely to encounter such high viral loads as the Chinese do.
I pray that saves us from what China is experiencing.
[In the cities, electricity is very cheap.]