How China Ended the Corona Virus Epidemic -- If It Has Ended

Infectious diseases cause epidemics when infected individuals infect, on average, more than one other person, causing the total number of infections to grow despite recovery or death of those previously infected. The number of individuals infected by each infected person is call the Reproduction number (R0).

Epidemics end when R0 falls below one. The COVID19 epidemic in China went exponential in January, with an R0 peaking at almost 4.0, and then tailed off throughout late January and February.

Why did it tail off?

Simple: quarantines and sequestrations.

Quarantine means restricting people's movement. This may mean restricting or prohibiting travel from one city to another, often referred to as a "lock-down,"or it may mean closing schools, universities, and places of business, thereby keeping people largely confined to their homes, rather than crowding together in the streets, on trains and buses, and in all places of assembly where those who are infected but asymptomatic can pass on the infection.

Quarantines may extend to ordering people to stay home, or even physically barring them from leaving their homes.

Sequestration means keeping the infected out of contact with the uninfected, including their own family or others with whom they share accommodation. In Wuhan, that was achieved by the creation of many thousands of beds in isolation facilities. These facilities are not primarily treatment facilities, they are simply places where sick people are put together out of contact with healthy members of their family and community.

The effectiveness of sequestration can be greatly enhanced if infected and infectious, but asymptomatic, individuals can be identified. Simple and rapid COVID19 tests have been developed, although control of the epidemic in China seems to have been achieved prior to widespread use of testing.

China's success in controlling COVID19 is proof of the effectiveness of China's authoritarian form of government in handling a crisis of the kind that would be experienced in the event of a biological WMD attack. As the virus spreads around the world, we will learn whether Western governments are can achieve by gentler means, China's remarkable success in containing this novel Corona virus.

But China's success remains to be confirmed. As reported here, some in China say the victory over the bat flu is FAKE.

Related:
Moon of Alabama: Coronavirus - The Hidden Cases - Why We Must Shut Everything Down And Do It Now
Zero Hedge: WHO Declares Covid-19 A Pandemic, Deeply Concerned At "Alarming Level Of Inaction"
WSJ: Italy, With Aging Population, Has World’s Highest Daily Deaths From Virus (Corona virus has killed 5% of known cases in Italy)