Opening the Chinese Box

I tend to beat the drum for the hydroxychloroquine treatment. Perhaps this is one more example of denial: I want it to be true.

I think it is based in part on my assumption that this plague is sent by God—almost a necessary assumption for a monotheist. That means God has a plan, and it seems to me that a “miracle cure” would make sense in terms of such a divine plan.

But Scott Adams has suggested another bit of evidence that might be significant. Scott Adams is a really smart guy, always worth watching on YouTube. He says he got the idea from Tucker Carlson, another really smart guy, on Fox News.

Seeing the devastating outbreaks in new epicentres in Iran, Italy, Spain, New York, over the past months, Adams asks, why was there never a similar new epicentre in China on the scale of Wuhan, or these others? Why has the same pattern of spread not been seen within China as has been seen outside China? The virus hit Wuhan during the Chinese New Year, and people dispersed from Wuhan all over China. While there have been local outbreaks all over, there have been no new major centres of spread to rival Wuhan.

China has for some time even been sending out ridiculously low numbers for new cases and new deaths, numbers that suggest the virus is over. Today’s figures are 46 new cases, 3 new deaths, in all of China.

Most of us have simply scoffed at these figures—the Chinese government is lying, as we know they often do.

Yet, Adams suggests, if there really were continuing large numbers of hospital admissions and deaths, wouldn’t it leak out? We do hear rumours, but wouldn’t there be more solid evidence in this era of interconnectedness and social media?

Adams thinks the most plausible explanation is that the Chinese have, and have been aggressively deploying, a vaccine or cure.

If it is a vaccine, though, Adams speculates that it would also be hard to vaccinate large numbers of people without this becoming apparent to the outside world. Moreover, why would the Chinese keep this a secret? Aside from humanitarian concerns, if they did so, and it later leaked out, as it was bound to, it would be devastating to their international reputation that they did not share their knowledge.

If not a vaccine, by elimination, they have some treatment.

This would still probably mean the figures are cooked; people are still getting the virus. But it would mean that the treatment available is so effective that this is invisible to the outside world. They are perhaps just getting what looks like a bad cold, or the like. They are given the medicine, sent home for a few days. No spike in hospital beds, in ventilator use, surgical masks, or burials.

And also, quite possibly, a genuine reduction in the number of new cases. If some pill kills the virus in the body within a few days, that leaves far less chance for others to be infected. It also could mean that people are getting well as quickly as new people are getting sick, keeping down the number of active cases. As herd immunity increases, also slowing the virus.

Doesn’t the same objection apply here as to a vaccine? Isn’t China’s international reputation going to suffer if they are doing this secretly, and it comes out?

No: because they are not doing it secretly. They already told us they were doing this. We first learned about the possibilities of hydroxychloroquine from Chinese studies. In addition to this, China some time ago officially released internationally a report on what they found clinically worked and did not work. And they cited chloraquine in this study. They said they were using it, and it seemed to work.

They did so precisely to avoid the charge that they were holding anything back. Would they have bothered if they did not think they had valuable advice to give?

And this same logic also suggests that, if they have found a cure, it will be some substance mentioned in that public report.

And it must have been something already fairly readily available, like chloraquine, if China has already been able to deploy it widely.

China was better equipped to move quickly on such a cure than most, not just because they can skip testing and trials, not needing to fear any lawsuits or electoral repercussions, but also because they are a huge centre for drug manufacture.

The really good news is that the current Chinese figures for new deaths and new infections may actually be more or less real.