The coronavirus as you may well know is a deadly virus that has killed hundreds, infected thousands, and has quarantined millions (Lin & Niu, 2020). It’s quite scary how fast this disease is spreading and how close it is to us in the United States. My wife just visited California on work orders and instead of her staying on Travis Air Force Base like she normally would, she was designated to stay at the nearby Super 8 Motel. Why was she designated to a motel instead of being on base you ask? This is because Travis Air Force Base was using their hotel as a quarantine zone as well as the nearby hospital. A plane of 178 passengers landed on Travis Air Force Base and they were the quarantined subjects (Rambaran, 2020). This virus is unfortunately spreading rapidly and China’s lack of communication skills is to blame.
The epicenter of the virus is from a place called Wuhan, China. All of Wuhan has been recently quarantined which is at least 11 million people (Lin & Niu, 2020). However, this outbreak could have been prevented from spreading so rapidly. If China owned up to there being a new SARS-like virus outbreak then the problem could have been detained much sooner before it spread to the rest of the world. China has a policy that whenever there is an emerging problem they shut down all forms of media by gagging reporters and scrubbing the internet, this is done because “they mandate social stability above everything else” (Lin & Niu, 2020). It was 3 months into the SARS outbreak before China decided to make it public and begin to treat is as a major issue. This current coronavirus went for a month before they accepted that the public should know. If there is one thing China should be commended on is how they deal with problems once they’ve decided it’s a major issue.
It seems once China realizes that issue is above their heads they jump into action unlike any other country. They built an enormous hospital in just ten days, and was live streamed for the world to see. This sort of action is very commendable but it’s unfortunate that it takes so long before it occurs. Just last year in 2019 China suffered from the African swine fever, which became a national crisis and a global threat (Lin & Niu, 2020). It took the lives of an estimated 50% of China’s pig population, that’s roughly 300 million dead pigs with over 50 countries being impacted by the infection as well (Reiley, 2019). China has either yet to learn their lesson or simply doesn’t want to make the change to communicating faster and being more transparent.
With that said we must keep in mind that, “Two people can thus receive the same message and understand it as having two entirely different meanings” (Abramson, Moran & Moran, 2014, pp. 39). In this case there is a large difference in cultural norms, what we as Americans may view as something that is an immediate imminent threat, China may see it as another day with nearly 1.4 billion people and virus outbreaks will of course occur. It makes you wonder how many near outbreaks may have occurred that we never knew about because it was handled internally before it became an epidemic.
In conclusion, we must always keep in mind that other people may view things differently from our own point of view. If you think that others think the way you do or should think the way you do, you are being egocentric. This is an issue that we all have faced at some point in our lives and owning up to it is the a step in the right direction. What a lot of people don’t understand is China’s policy on social stability first but it’s apparent that it’s not changing in the near future. The best we can do is attempt to understand it, in my opinion with such a large population it would probably be a nightmare and cause unneeded stress on the Chinese population if every possible threat was met with a government outcry. I imagine trying to keep a population that large calm is an enormous task.
References
Abramson, N., Moran, R., & Moran, S. (2014). Managing cultural differences (8th ed., p. 39). Routledge.
Lin, T., & Niu, I. (2020). The coronavirus reveals China’s weakness in handling public health crises. Retrieved 8 February 2020, from https://qz.com/1796376/the-coronavirus-shows-how-badly-china-handles-public-health-crises/
Rambaran, V. (2020). Flight arrives in California from epicenter of coronavirus outbreak, 178 passengers will be quarantined. Retrieved 8 February 2020, from https://www.foxnews.com/us/flight-california-china-coronavirus-passengers-quarantined
Reiley, L. (2019). A terrible pandemic is killing pigs around the world, and U.S. pork producers fear they could be hit next. Retrieved 8 February 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/16/terrible-pandemic-is-killing-pigs-around-world-us-pork-producers-fear-they-could-be-next/
zjz5237 says
Hello Erik:
Your post has been very interesting and educative. According to research, human-human infectious viruses are the most deadly epidemics in human history. The coronavirus is believed to have first spread from animals to humans. Still, as it is evident, the virus spreads from one human to another, meaning that it is bound to spread widely and for a considerable amount of time. The people close to those who are infected, especially the family and caregivers, are the most vulnerable ones to be affected by the virus. Seemingly the coronavirus is spreading day by day at an accelerating rate. The number of those who are dying and getting infected is increasing as the days go by. It started with hundreds, right now thousands of people are getting affected at an alarming rate. What are the measures that should be taken to ensure that the coronavirus is contained? What are the impacts of the coronavirus to the global economy and China in particular?
asy5 says
Erik,
You did a great job discussing the communication differences between the Chinese and American cultures related to to bio threats such as the coronavirus. You mentioned that you wonder how many near outbreaks may have occurred that we never knew about because they were handled before they became epidemics. I seldom doubt there are things that go on outside the main stream view of the public, and believe there are often good reasons to withhold information that may cause widespread panic, at least until solutions to these problems have been discovered.
You might be interested in a newly released book titled ‘Inside the Hot Zone’, written by retired U.S. Army Col. Mark G. Kortepeter (2020), who spent more than 7 years in various leadership roles within the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. The Col. writes from his first hand leadership experiences as a ‘biofender’ working in one of the most dangerous workplaces on earth. He writes about how he and his colleagues “navigated threats related to anthrax, botulism, smallpox, Lassa, and Ebola” (cover).
I met Col. Kortepeter a few days ago and find his book informative, a little scary, yet fascinating.
Kortepeter, M. G. (2020). Inside the hot zone: A soldier on the front lines of biological warfare. University of Nebraska Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctvr7fc2r