China: Outpacing the virus

Learnings from China’s operational marvel

The covid times have tested the human capabilities at a level that many experts would have regarded as too hot to handle. The process has been no less than a bloodbath where we lost a lot many of our warriors losing their breath. It is undeniable that the way in which the crisis was dealt was far from smooth. No one was prepared for it including the government, international health organizations, doctors, scientists or citizens.

The country of five golden stars has once again put a claim to write the new world order by outpacing the virus. This time the enemy was small but the challenge it posed was way bigger than the world could handle. The virus spared no one- right from touted superpowers to aspiring nations.

Challenges:

1. Unknown enemy: Because SARS CoV-2 was a newly mutated form of virus, its symptoms, diagnosis, preventive measures and hence cure were also not known. By tackling such an enemy, china has hit the bulls’ eye blindfolded.
2. Uncanny reputation: China does not enjoy a generous reputation in international round conferences for which its past actions are to blame for most of the part. It has established its position with the likes of Mojo-jojo from Power-puff girls who has sinister plans to rule the world.

Achievements:

1. Quick react lockdowns: China realized the gravity of the news coming out of Wuhan and decided to lockdown the city with a population of more than a crore. The decision of a lockdown would have been extremely difficult to proceed with especially for a growth hungry madman like China. It was easier for rest of the world to impose lockdown in their cities because they had seen its efficacy in Wuhan.
2. Managing mass movement: The Chinese new year is the biggest event in the chinese calendar year and it was supposed to begin on January 25th. This would have led to world’s biggest intra-country migration like every year. But this year was different, china imposed lockdown in Wuhan on January 23rd to restrict this mass movement and hence further spread of the virus.
3. Raising hospitals in record time: The chinese government ordered Chinese State Engineering corporation, world’s largest construction company to raise a 1000 bed facility Huashenshen hospital. CPEC accomplished the task by using modular construction where already constructed walls, doors etc. were brought to the construction site for assembly.
4. Managing the healthcare staff: Once Wuhan was locked and Covid hospitals were raised, the next challenge was to augment the healthcare staff. China called in army medics from other parts of China to make the best of the time available to them.
5. Simplifying the protocols: The next biggest challenge left now was to train the hospital staff on how to deal with the unexpected pandemic. Attention to details was taken care of by coming up with a set of covid management protocol. The resulting document ran to hundreds of pages. The hospital staff was finding it difficult to identify and comprehend the right protocol in a given situation. As a result, mismanagement and chaos were quite visible in hospitals of Wuhan. A committee was established to look into it and they came up with a simplified protocols which were easy to understand and follow.