Coronavirus: why the west will be hit harder
FT science editor Clive Cookson on why the testing response in different regions has left western nations catching up with a crisis they never expected, and why culture, politics and behaviour are all important factors in beating the virus worldwide
Produced, filmed and edited by James Sandy. Additional footage from Reuters
Transcript
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Europe has now become the epicentre of the pandemic.
75 per cent of the world's new coronavirus cases are now being reported in Europe. And in the worst affected countries, Italy and Spain, death tolls are rising faster than they did in China at the very start of the epidemic.
Other European countries and the US are expected to follow Italy's lead. If they do, it's predicted that death rates in these countries will continue to climb by 33 per cent every day. This is despite signs that China is getting the outbreak there under control.
And neighbouring countries, like Hong Kong and Singapore, have managed to contain the virus more effectively than Europe. So why the difference between east and west? And what could it mean for the west's recovery?
The first reason is the lack of testing that western health services have been able to carry out.
We have a simple message for all countries - test, test, test.
The World Health Organisation has made its position on testing absolutely clear. You can't know what you're up against until you know who's infected.
South Korea set up drive-through centres designed to keep people away from hospitals and to deliver results to them within hours. It's meant that they've been able to test thousands more potentially infected people every day, all helping isolation efforts and reducing the risk of spread.
Meanwhile, testing in most western countries is somewhere between a quarter and a tenth of Korea's capacity. The reason testing is so inadequate in the west is down to another key factor, lack of resources. There's simply aren't enough testing kits to go around.
But that's no longer the most important concern. While Japan and South Korea have seven hospital beds per 1,000 people, the UK, US and Italy have just two. And Western countries are scrambling to repurpose ventilators, which are going to be needed for patients with severe symptoms, even committing to building them from scratch in some cases.
Beyond the physical capability of health systems to test for and treat the disease, there are many more less tangible differences between east and west, which may create just as much divergence between each region's coronavirus response.
Call it culture, politics, behaviour - for me, it comes down to mentality. China was able to impose strict sanctions because of the way Beijing governs its people from top down. But eastern democracies have done a better job of containing the virus by being transparent and clear in their public health instructions. And the people in those countries have obeyed.
The leaders of the US and the UK have started to speak more openly and more often to the general public. But the reaction of people across Europe has, to put it mildly, been mixed. This isn't wagging the finger at western democracies.
The response was the same in the east when Sars first hit in 2003. But since that shared trauma the countries worst affected have reacted by overhauling their health systems to make sure they were prepared for the next crisis.
Those hard lessons have put them in good stead. Whereas the west is catching up with a crisis it never really expected. Europe and the United States will likely take longer to adapt, which means more cases, more deaths, and a longer recovery period.
But if there is any long-term consolation, it's that lessons will be learned, both from the eastern experience and from our own.
