China donates 1000 ventilators to New York
New York, NY – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on April 4 that China has donated 1000 ventilators to the state of New York. This act further shows the contrast between how China has handled the novel coronavirus versus the United States, and how socialism is better equipped to handle public health crises than capitalism can.
China, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, took swift action when the coronavirus hit. In mid-January, China implemented a lockdown, including movement in and out of Wuhan and 15 cities in the Hubei province. As a result, new cases went from a peak of thousands per day to a couple dozen per day. To address the overflow of patients resulting from the coronavirus, China responded by building two hospitals in just ten days, with a total of 16 being built overall in February. As of March 10, the last of the temporary hospitals in Wuhan have been shut down after a rapid decline in cases and receiving over 13,000 coronavirus patients. China has also sent doctors, tests, ventilators, and other resources to various countries around the world to help them treat the virus.
Meanwhile, the capitalist U.S. has had a much different response. President Trump failed to take action when warned about the coronavirus months before it escalated in the United States. Many workers are tasked with the difficult decision of risking their lives by going to work in order to pay the bills, or practice social distancing and risk missing rent payments. In New York, there has been a halting of evictions, but because a rent suspension or cancellation has not yet been put into place, tenants are still expected to pay rent and are still liable for penalties later on. Many grocery stores have run out of toilet paper and essential food items due to hoarding and being unequipped to handle a crisis. With supplies to treat patients and protect hospital workers from the virus, it is the U.S. asking for assistance from China, a country Trump and other U.S. politicians claim is our enemy.
Through economic planning, China has been much better able to address the coronavirus and has seen immense success from the measures taken to contain and treat the virus. People in the United States should look to China as an example of what can be done when you prioritize people’s needs over profit.