Why the COVID-19 Shutdown Measures in China Won’t Work in the US

It is well-known at this point that China is a successful example of stopping the COVID-19 spread before it could get way worse there. It got a lot of people wondering how the US can learn from China’s experience. The conversations so far are largely around drastic measures and the vigorous enforcement of them. However, we are missing a critical part of the equation — the culture.

I was born and grew up in China until I was 19. I spent my earlier years in China, living with my family, and my adulthood in the US living alone. The exercise of constantly interacting with and switching between two instinct cultures in different settings has helped me in developing a censor in detecting cultural differences. That is, the ability to pick up cues where the two cultural values collide or emerge.

I’ve been talking to my family back in China about covid-19 since January 2020 when it first started spreading there. Initially, it was me listening to the stories and sympathize with the people suffering from the situation, now the table has completely turned. When I talked to the people I know in China, it appeared puzzling to them how badly the US was handling this situation early on, which has now led to the US having way more confirmed cases than China, with far less population density.