While the Wuhan virus has spread across China in the past few months, one of the main facets of the economy that has been tested the most is the healthcare system. After the SARS outbreak in 2003, the Chinese government has begun issuing expanded state-funded insurance schemes. Now, more than 95% of Chinese are covered. Out-of-pocket payments have fallen around 60%, and general medical expenses have fallen 30%.
However, the issue remains with those at the lower ends of the socioeconomic class; the costs are crippling for the poorest of Chinese people. This was highlighted by a pregnant woman dying from the virus after her husband decided that her bill was no longer affordable.
On paper, the country's 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people is right in line with similar nations. Unfortunately, in between the numbers lies the problem; half of the country's doctors do not have a bachelor's degree. This issue hits smaller towns the worst, compounding the problem of not being close to major medical centers. The coronavirus is pushing Chinese healthcare to its limits, with some people avoiding hospitals because of all the sick patients and some clinics canceling appointments to treat lesser injuries.
The question remains, if this happened somewhere else, would it have been handled better? Is the system the problem, or is no developed or developing nation capable of containing this kind of threat?
https://www.economist.com/china/2020/02/06/a-weak-health-care-system-complicates-chinas-coronavirus-battle
5 comments:
Sadly, I believe it could be handled better when Coronavirus hits other countries. As of now, there have been a few cases throughout the EU and the US, and just today the German Health Minister Jens Spahn has stated that containment in Germany has been working at controlling and preventing the further spread of the disease. For China, I believe that the amount of cases has been under-reported due to people having it without knowing, not being able to seek treatment, or the government itself under-reporting. Things will most likely get worse before they get better and I can see this affecting China for a longer period of time than most expect.
I believe it could definitely be better handled in a more developed nations. Most of the developed nations have the proper equipment to contain and test the virus while some other poorer countries struggle to contain the virus. But, even for developed countries,. it will be harder to contain the virus if the virus becomes a more eminent threat. There are some concerns by experts that this coronavirus could be worse than the 2009 pandemic flu, but some other experts also thing that this virus would not be that big. Here is the link to another article I read if you want to check more about it.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532693-500-coronavirus-how-well-prepared-are-countries-for-a-covid-19-pandemic/
Yes, I think China could have handled their outbreak better. Especially because of the fact that they do not have enough doctors to treat patients who have the Coronavirus, which surprised me personally because of how developed and wealthy China is. The hard part about it too is that it is hard for people to tell when they have it because flu symptoms are very similar. Then, the strand spreads further, and people are spreading it when they don't even know they have it. The healthcare system is not strong enough to handle the aggressiveness of this disease.
I do think that the virus could have been handled better by China. The medical centers are not dispersed evenly throughout so if the coronavirus broke out somewhere rural it hit really hard. And I don't think that many countries can really claim that they would've handled it perfectly, because there is no way to prevent these things, they just kinda happen. But I do think some countries would have done better.
I also believe that the virus beginning in China has allowed it to grow uncontrollably. Like Joey stated, the fact that hospitals are not distributed well throughout the nation could have many citizens with out access to healthcare at all. I think that if the virus began in a fully developed nation it would've been quickly controlled.
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