We're going to find out very soon. But what have Taiwan and China and So. Korea done that we can't do? If they really have a handle on it, and there won't be a spike there, we should be copying their methods. Of course, can we really trust the Chinese? They lied about the virus that they had it. Had they been up front, the rest of the world could have got a jump on it. But all that's water over the dam. Can we get real data as to their and other procedures where stopping this thing is really working. I'm only 50 miles from NYC which is getting most of the numbers.
What they did is no secret: strict quarantine, and massive testing, VERY EARLY ON. That is the secret, to precvent contagion from the beginning. The virus R0 (infection ratio) is normally between 3 and 4. 1 person can infect 3 or 4; each one of those 3 or 4 will then infect another 3 or 4 and so on. Quarantining after the virus is freely spreading in the community has a much lower effect in arresting the exponential growth rate.
In Spain and Italy, they were too late. In Portugal, after about 10 days of staying at home, growth rate has decreased to 15%, which is good. The current R0 is about 1.5. The problm here is the older population staying in care homes - a lot of those homes have been found out to be infected, especially the people taking care of the old folks... it will be a disaster.
I don't want to mention politics again, but clearly some of the key decision makers were in denial until very recently. The efficient measures need to be taken on time, now it will be too late to have a big impact. Again countries have learned a lot from their experience with SARS epidemic in 2002 - 2003, so they acted immediately.
Yes, China were late in admiting the problem and warning the World. But governments everywhere were slow in adopting efficeint measures on time.
