Coronavirus and Value Systems

Why has there been such a sharp difference in the impact of coronavirus between East and West? From everything I’ve read, it seems like the root cause lies in the value systems of the two sides. Ironically, the very values and beliefs that served  the West so well have now become an albatross around their necks.

Definitions, Definitions: Take the basic question asked from early on, “Is coronavirus airborne or not?”. Believe it or not, the word “airborne” has a very different definition than what the layman thinks! Ed Yong explains:

“When people are infected with respiratory viruses, they emit viral particles whenever they talk, breathe, cough, or sneeze. These particles are encased in globs of mucus, saliva, and water. Bigger globs fall faster than they evaporate, so they splash down nearby—these are traditionally called “droplets.” Smaller globs evaporate faster than they fall, leaving dried-out viruses that linger in the air and drift farther afield—these are called “aerosols.” When researchers say a virus is “airborne,” like measles or chickenpox, they mean that it moves as aerosols.”

That is the how the WHO uses such terms. And what was lost as a result?

“The question, then, isn’t whether the coronavirus is “airborne” in the tediously academic way the word has been defined… The better questions are: How far does the virus move? And is it stable and concentrated enough at the end of its journey to harm someone’s health?”

But that is not what the West asked… until they were already swamped. The East, philosophically and culturally, has been open to ambiguity.

Proof, Not Intuition: Proving something isn’t easy. The methodology can be questioned. Repeating tests take time. Sample sizes can be debated. To make matters worse, all the initial cases were in a country that one doesn’t exactly associate with transparency: China. Which meant all the initial data was suspect (in the eyes of the West). The East acted by intuition: disease bad. Possibly contagious disease worse. Disease with fatalities worst. Act accordingly.

Love of Numbers: What is the infected count? How fast is it spreading? What is its gestation period? What is its fatality rate? The answers were all in China. But could their numbers be trusted? To be fair, China may not have known what they were up against initially. To make matters worse, China’s counting methodology excluded people who were diagnosed to have coronavirus but were found to be asymptomatic (not having symptoms), thereby reducing the numbers. Time will tell if this was malice or ignorance, but the number loving West had done its assessment based on those flawed numbers. The East, on the other hand, was never drawn to the siren song of Pythagoras, “Everything is number”.

Trust in Authorities: From the beginning, the WHO was fulsome in its praise of China’s handling, as Ben Thompson wrote:

“At every step of this outbreak the WHO has sought to praise and accommodate China, despite the fact that news about the initial outbreak was forcibly suppressed, the fact that China violated WHO guidelines with the severity of its quarantines (which to be clear, appear to have been effective), the fact that China hid the transmission rate amongst health care workers from the WHO until February 14 and waited weeks to even allow the WHO into the country, and only then on carefully scripted and chaperoned tours.”

Taiwan, always threatened and mistrustful of China, didn’t believe a word of it. So much so, that as early as 31 December, long before China even acknowledged that there was something to worry about, Taiwan warned the WHO not only of the disease but also that there was human-to-human transmission. To no avail.

Rights of the Individual: Early on, the WHO advisory said:

“To reduce COVID-19 illness and death, near-term readiness planning must embrace the large-scale implementation of high-quality, non-pharmaceutical public health measures. These measures must fully incorporate immediate case detection and isolation, rigorous close contact tracing and monitoring/ quarantine, and direct population/ community engagement.”

Isolation, quarantining, contact tracing… see how invasive those steps are for people who worship the rights of the individual and privacy? No wonder the West was so reluctant; but the East had no qualms on that front.

Love of Certainty: Both the WHO and US health agencies declared that masks were needed only by those who were at high risk e.g. taking care of the sick. This was apparently said to prevent people from hoarding on masks and thereby causing a shortage to those who needed them most: health care professionals. Plus, nobody was sure what kind of masks were helpful. The East didn’t sweat over such details: China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan masked up early. As it turned out, partial protection is better than no protection, and any slowdown in transmission is still a small win. And the small wins added up.

Economic Growth, the Holy Cow: As Ben Thompson wrote, the West looked at it as an either/or choice, a Yes or a No, a 1 or a 0:

“The only options are to give up the economy or give in to the virus.”

Sacrificing economic growth is hardly a palatable option in the West, while the East went with the “better to lose 21 days than to lose 21 years” attitude (the exact numbers in that quote don’t matter, it’s the Eastern mindset that economic growth is not the only thing in the world)…

Notice how none of the Western values is bad in itself? Rather, it goes to show that the values were context sensitive all along.