The emergence of
coronavirus in Chinese region of Wuhan and subsequent spread elsewhere in China
and abroad is sending shockwaves. The governmental response is a shutdown of
cities and provinces home to millions. It could not have come at a worse time given
the holidays for Chinese lunar New Year. People would be travelling back home,
to their ancestral places, to be with their friends etc. The virus has put paid
to the plans and tourism industry is at a standstill. Worse, the panic seems to
be gripping large scale population and upheavals not ruled out. Historically
Chinese Communist Party has been secretive about the incidence and spread of
virus and this adds to the rumours all around. Most accounts suggest,
underreporting on casualties from the Chinese authorities, some even suggesting
underreporting by factor 8-10. Setting aside the exaggerations, it can be
safely assumed the reporting would be around 40-50% of the total cases in the
best case scenario. Given the global travel cycles, the spread of the virus
overseas has a prospect to create socio-economic upheaval.
Despite lack of
clarity on the origin of the virus, many reasons are floating around the social
media. At the moment, the official line seems to verve around the origin of the
virus in bats or other wild animals and ensuing spread to humans through
consumption of wild animal meat. In the past, SARS virus was linked to civet
cat and thus the cause in all probability might be accurate. Some accounts seem certain, perhaps with good
reason, coronavirus as a product of Chinese bio-warfare gone rogue. Chinese labs
for microorganisms is located in Wuhan and any leakage of a strain might be
potentially significantly damaging. Therefore, the line of argument might have
merit reinforced by Chinese experiments in bio-warfare. The Chinese secrecy catalyses
the rumours. Increasing comparisons are being drawn to Chernobyl. The nuclear
disaster is apparently viewed as primarily an outcome not just of faulty substandard
design of nuclear reactor but as General Secretary Gorbachev admitted years
later, an outcome of broken and distorted system that could not continue, a
system that had nourished a practice of organized lying. With some merits, similar
comparisons might be applied to current China as well.
Pictures and
videos being uploaded on the internet and social media, many of which are
disturbing, seem to convey a high handedness of authorities towards citizenry. The
seriousness of the pandemic can be gauged by the fact, Chinese authorities are
building large scale mobile temporary hospitals to cater to 1000 beds. Time
will perhaps tell the long term impact on socio-political-economic dynamics in
Chinese ecosystem but the current situation demands containment of the virus along
with a design of prospective cure and vaccine. The very signal of large scale
shutdown, massive building of hospital infrastructure on war-footing, military movements
across cities all are sufficient signals indicating the magnitude of the
disease. Given the context, it might be
worth exploring whether China has an alternative other than an involuntary
shutdown.
Like any other
epidemic, coronavirus follows what Gladwell might term law of few, stickiness
and power of context. Given the scale of global travel, the pandemics chart a
path of increasing returns to spread of epidemic. The global travellers irrespective
of reason of travel, become unwitting connectors, mavens and salesman for
coronavirus pandemic. Some experts argue given the contagious nature of the
virus, unlike H5N1 or SARS, it does not require any specialist mavens of
connector or salesman. It just spreads. The context is a given and thus add to
the increasing returns and like most viruses be sticky.
In Talebian phraseology,
the coronavirus is a fat tailed distribution. Implied would be alpha being less
than three, thus mathematically undefined skewness and variance. The possibility
of the penalties of tail occurrence would be significantly high and potentially
irreversible. Therefore, borrowing from Taleb, apparently it has all signs of a
ruin event. A ruin event is defined as an event whose imports are irreversible.
The rapid spread of the virus across countries with increased mortality rate
would put societies at high risk. In the long run, while probability of
survival is finite for a single event, the probability for survival for
continued exposure to repeated ruin events tends towards zero. The framework thus makes the orthodox cost
benefit analysis unviable.
The processes do
not manifest ergodicity. In other words, the historical patterns of contagion
have hardly any value in determining the trajectory of the current virus. Without
doubt, there is asymmetry over the process. Without exception, the novel
outbreak carriers are accompanied by forward looking uncertainty. It is perhaps
too early to gauge a pattern and intensity of impact and thus compounds the
woes of doctors and vaccine hunters. Viral contagions necessarily need physical
space to expand. There is no clarity about contagious asymptomatic carriers. Indubitably,
processes like contact tracing, monitoring, temperature screening etc. might
not prove to be effective. With the process being convex to uncertainty, the multiplier
effect of negative returns emerge.
To experts, the
reproductive ratio is higher relative to past incidences. A few are suggesting
Ro, the reproductive ratio to in excess of 3.5 though some downward revision
has happened in the last couple of days. Ro =3.5 implies every person infected
would prospectively infect 3.5 more persons. Given around 1000 cases to begin
with the reproductive ratio is likely to result in 3500 people being affected. In
comparison, some estimates of World War I Spanish Flu had the reproductive
ratio of less than three in community settings. Moreover the Ro is biased
downwards in the early stages of the disease.
There is an added uncertainty over the mortality rate. The case fatality
rate might be less than 5% but asymmetry of uncertainty might even be
potentially biasing the rate downwards. The mortality rate might be visible with
a lag. Moreover, there is little clarity of demographic and psychographics of
those who are likely to succumb to the disease.
Apparently,
given the uncertainties and the associated concomitants, as Taleb suggests, the
rational policy for China and by extension of the rest of the world would be to
put in place a complete cessation in mobility, local and global. The short term
impact might be severe on the economy and society, yet without over-abundant
precaution, short term ramifications might lead to irreversible repercussions. Prima
facie, Chinese action seems to border on paranoia, supressing information which
all might haunt it later but the current state of affairs leaves it with no
option but force a total shutdown.
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