Two days after the announcement1 by Xi Jinping, with whom he declared the peak of the health emergency in China passed, and that of the World Health Organization (WHO) which confirmed the pandemic in progress, Trump declared the state of national emergency.
An announcement that does not come unexpected, even if until a few days ago the president continued to minimize the "foreign virus", with an eye always turned to the growing number of infections.
As of this writing, the "Wuhan virus" - (so called by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on March 4) - is an impending threat for the USA, which casts an opaque veil over the next presidential election round.
Trump's statement comes at the end of a long period during which the president, publicly placing the responsibility for the contagion on China, has always rejected requests for emergency measures from many quarters, such as that of the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio , who screamed: "the President remains all but silent on the most important thing: rapid, extensive testing... New Yorkers don't care where the virus came from".
Trump, on the other hand, has long been clear about the health situation in the country, and the presence of the cursed virus that may have already attacked tens of thousands of his fellow citizens.
For the United States, this is an emergency in the emergency: the American model of health care, as David Rossi wisely recalled yesterday on these pages (v.articolo), has “Only about 925.000 hospital beds with medical personnel, of which less than a tenth for critical cases in intensive care".
The American slowness is supported by that of the European Union, which traditionally uncoordinated in common matters, could not fail to be so in those, such as health care, which fall within the full sovereignty of individual States.
In these hours, when the curves of the contagion of France and Germany faithfully follow the Italian one of 8-10 days ago, in no country of the old continent do significant prohibitions of assembly and isolation apply.
Spain, which as we write "flies" towards 10.000 infections, waited yesterday evening to impose restrictions on the movement of citizens who follow Italian ones.
On the other hand, nothing to be surprised about if we think about how we were less than a week ago.
It is therefore interesting, in these hours of agile work or forced holidays at home, to read the report2 of the WHO team sent to China for the pandemic need.
The document sieves the initiatives implemented by Beijing to combat COVID 19, promoting it with flying colors for the timeliness of actions to support the containment of the disease.
A non-discounted promotion, given the delays with which China has admitted the existence of an ongoing epidemic, and consider the restrictive measures against Li Wenliang, the young doctor who first went unheard of the alarm about Wuhan's coronavirus.
Nonetheless, the document considers the Chinese ones "the most ambitious, aggressive agile containment operations in history"and "recommends all states to activate response initiatives at the highest level to limit the spread of the virus".
Of course, China has always been facilitated by its political and administrative system, but this does not take away - says the medical journal Lancet in one of his editorial3 - that all states involved "They must abandon fears about the short-term negative economic and public consequences that could result from the limitation of individual freedoms" and do everything to stop the spread of the infection.
Also for fear that this will spread in the "Countries in most of sub-Saharan Africa, not prepared for a coronavirus epidemic, or in Latin America and the Middle East".
The victory over COVID 19, for the Chinese leadership, now becomes a strength that facilitates the recovery of national pride.
With a lot of difficulties, Beijing has managed to capitalize on the experience of the SARS epidemic of 2002-2003, and now intends to cash in by playing the card of its victorious leadership and symbolically placing itself at the head of the nations committed to fighting the terrible disease.
Then play the card of international solidarity, and wait unhurriedly for the spread of the virus on American territory, to inflict a first hit on it, veiled perhaps by the offer of medical personnel expert in basic health goods, of which the Dragon is a global manufacturing leader.
Health protection masks are becoming the most valuable diplomacy tool, as well as a primary asset of protection against contagion ever more unavailable.
China already held its world record for production with 20 million specimens per day, multiplied starting from 29 February, with an immense effort that has demonstrated the centralization capacity of the national production system.
Il Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, just to cite an example, which builds the J-20 (5th generation stealth jet), has converted some lines to produce personal health protection devices (PPE); 258 engineers redesigned an assembly line with over 1200 components in three days.
And so did over 2500 companies, including 700 technology ones: such as Foxconn, the main assembler of the iPhone, Xiaomi and Oppo smartphone manufacturers.
The COVID 19, seen from Beijing, rather than sinking its economic rise as the macroeconomic data of the first quarter would seem to suggest, may prove more useful than ever to consecrate its global role in the immediate future.
3https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20) 30522-5 / fulltext
Photo: Xinhua / European Commission / Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Italy
