The Revenge of the Germs
• a security crisis that leaves the police and gendarmes destitute , while their missions are redirected essentially toward the supervision of the population .
Unfortunately , this list is not exhaustive .
Unpredictable , incoherent , inexperienced : such were the views of most governments and few will emerge unscathed from their generally chaotic management of the event . Some chose the Azincourt option and remained stunned by an event that surprised and overwhelmed them . Others took the Maginot option and believed either in the practice of limited containment or in the desirability of herd immunity . Finally , a few have chosen the Waterloo option , which inevitably sees the operations carried out against the odds ending badly , without taking into account the extent of the risks incurred by the populations : England , the United States , and Brazil are now paying a high price for this .
General MacArthur said that “ the battles lost can be summed up in two words : too late .” In the face of an exceptional crisis , humility should not prevent lucidity . If we had all been affected in the same way , we would have had to believe in fatality . But , before our eyes , one country effectively used preventive and proactive methods ( Taiwan ), while two others used more or less decisive techniques ( South Korea and China )— and this in very different social and political configurations .
Hitting the world as a whole , the crisis has shaken all international bodies , the WHO in the first place and all continental organizations , including the European Union , and has exacerbated all geopolitical tensions , starting with the fundamental opposition between China and the United States . It has thus shown , as never before , how inextricable the links between foreign and domestic policy are now within each state and between all states .
From January 2020 , in Wuhan where it all began , a city that is a symbol in the imagination of the Middle Kingdom , the posture of Mayor Zhou Xianwang , candidate for the highest offices within the Communist Party , weighs heavily in the initial concealment of information . In Beijing , the event was used to hasten the purging of the security apparatus by arresting Sun Lijun , the last survivor of the so-called Shanghai team affiliated with former President Jiang Zemin , on corruption charges .
Meanwhile , the international press is having fun and is mainly interested in the folkloric city market of Wuhan where pangolins and bats are traded .
A cradle on the other side of the world
Wuhan , the capital of Hubei province , has often taken a decisive place at the heart of Chinese history . Cradle of the revolt against the Qing , the uprising in Wuchang ( Wuhan district ) on October 10 , 1911 heralded the fall of the empire
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