Xi'an War Epidemic. Next｜How to avoid the failure of "one general will fail, and the three armies will be exhausted"?

The city of Xi'an in Shaanxi Province has just fought an uphill battle against the new crown virus epidemic for more than 30 days.

After a long period of clearing, one new local confirmed case began on the 9th of last month, and more than 150 new cases were added every day in the middle and late last month, until yesterday (January 12), which finally dropped to single digits. 6 cases - In just over a month, a total of 2,031 new cases have been added across the city.

Many people say that with the lessons learned from Wuhan's closure of the city, the epidemic in Xi'an can obviously be avoided, but unfortunately people are always forgetful and often fail to learn the lesson seriously.

Hong Kong, where the Omicron epidemic is imminent, is this not the case?

Xi'an War Epidemic.

上｜What lessons should be learned after fighting a tough battle for more than 30 days?

From the confusion and mistakes in the initial outbreak of the epidemic, many Xi'an citizens were anxious and worried due to lack of food and vegetables, to the major adjustment and strict management in the middle and late stages, the newly confirmed cases dropped sharply, and the overall situation showed signs of improvement.

Although the "Xi'an One-Code Pass" system collapsed on January 4, the new round of nucleic acid screening process in the city that was just decided to be launched was delayed for a while, and once again exposed the serious shortcomings of Xi'an's epidemic prevention and urban governance, but the measures taken by local officials Judging from the measures and the feedback from Xi'an citizens, the authorities are working to solve the problems of difficulty in seeking medical treatment and eating vegetables - for example, special areas such as the most difficult urban villages have decided to set up special classes to solve the problem of villagers' dining problems, and many communities have also received food. , I believe that the most difficult and chaotic times are over.

For people who understand how the country is fighting the epidemic, it is predictable to control the epidemic in the short term.

However, Xi'an's surprise did indeed surprise many people.

It is undeniable that any major city suddenly encounters a closure, and it is inevitable that all kinds of chaos and problems will arise.

Because modern cities are inherently fragile, and materials mainly rely on market-based supplies, once the city is closed and the economy shuts down, it will inevitably be difficult.

In this regard, no city can be an exception.

However, the governance level and emergency management capabilities of different cities are different, which determines that different cities will have different performance in crisis.

The problem of Xi'an's epidemic prevention this time is that there is no contingency plan at all, and its governance level and crisis management ability are also seriously inconsistent with the urban expansion rate in the past few years, so that in the face of the epidemic, it will simply take a "one-size-fits-all" measure. As a result, there are many problems, and many people in China in the 21st century need to worry about having enough food.

Although Xi'an's ability to organize and coordinate is ridiculous, with the intervention of state forces (China has accumulated and formed a set of experience in rapid and effective control of the epidemic at the national level at least in the past two years), and a large number of people in Xi'an have reported problems and issues through the Internet. Under the pressure of asking for help and the indignation of public opinion, Xi'an has already made changes, focusing not only on the prevention and control of the epidemic, but also on basic livelihood security.

But even so, people cannot help but reflect on the fact that Xi'an, as a national central city with a permanent population of over 10 million, has two years of experience in epidemic prevention in the country, compared to Wuhan, which had little knowledge of the epidemic at the beginning. , not only has not made significant progress, but is full of loopholes, especially the situation of many people suffering from hunger, which is really heartbreaking.

Judging from the current public opinion, Xi'an's epidemic prevention performance is really unsatisfactory, which has caused the image of a new first-tier city accumulated hard in recent years to be severely damaged, and the credibility of the local government has fallen into a credit crisis.

Why did Xi'an come to this point?

On the one hand, it is the problem of the lack of urban governance and emergency management capabilities in Xi'an mentioned above, that is, the problem that netizens criticize "one general will not work, and the three armies will be exhausted." On the other hand, Xi'an has not absorbed the accuracy of Shanghai and other places at all. Epidemic prevention, scientific epidemic prevention experience and Wuhan city closure experience two years ago.

A year ago, the author visited Wuhan to write a special report on the first anniversary of the epidemic.

At that time, I talked to people in Wuhan about whether the society would learn the lessons of Wuhan’s epidemic prevention and avoid similar mistakes and confusion. Some friends said pessimistically that the society would not really learn any lessons, and soon they forgot all about it. All that can be expected is medical progress.

At that time, the author was skeptical of what my friend said, and I always hoped that the lessons of Wuhan could be learned from all over the world, because one cannot step into the same river twice.

But unfortunately, it turns out that Xi'an still failed to learn its lessons after all, which not only cost the city's image quite a lot, put many people in trouble for a time, but also gave the past two years a global reputation for being very good. The dazzling achievements of China's epidemic prevention have cast a shadow.

The German philosopher GWF Hegel once said that the only lesson history has taught mankind is that mankind never learns.

There is no lack of truth in this statement, but it is always difficult to accept.

How can humanity progress if it cannot learn from its past mistakes?

The French novelist Albert Camus once wrote in The Plague that knowledge and memory are "the greatest lessons and experience a disaster can give people", "We should not easily let go of the pain and suffering we have experienced in governance. The lesson is to try to avoid the next disaster when it happens, instead of repeating the same mistakes again and again.”

For China, which has experienced the closure of Wuhan and Xi'an in the past two years, Camus' remarks have strong practical significance.

After all, the epidemic prevention in Xi'an has already repeated the chaos and mistakes of the original epidemic prevention in Wuhan to a considerable extent. The same problem will not be repeated for the third time, right?

Is this not the case for Hong Kong, where the Omicron epidemic is imminent?

Over the past two years, the overly loose entry quarantine measures have led to many community outbreaks, and the mainland authorities have questioned the effectiveness of Hong Kong’s prevention and control, and have been reluctant to implement the quarantine-free entry policy. It is because he failed to learn a lesson, and can never be separated from a fluke mentality and management thinking of "greeting for convenience" and "saving trouble"——

Recall that in late July 2020, the overseas epidemic was out of control. In the United States alone, more than 50,000 people were diagnosed every day. However, the SAR government did not require overseas arrivals to undergo centralized isolation, and even allowed crew members and crew members to be exempted from virus testing. , freely entering and leaving the community, resulting in the third wave of the epidemic in Hong Kong;

It was not until early August 2020 that the third wave of the epidemic gradually slowed down. Although the SAR government finally took centralized quarantine measures for overseas arrivals, it did not implement a "closed-loop" management, but allowed relatives and friends of quarantined people to visit, As a result, in mid-November, the fourth wave of the epidemic with more than 100 confirmed daily cases occurred. The resources of the quarantine center were once in short supply, and there were many tragedies of "waiting for isolation and waiting to die". ;

Afterwards, the SAR government finally made some progress and breakthroughs. Finally, from January 23, 2021, a limited number of "closed area testing" and "building closed testing" actions were taken to speed up the investigation of infection cases and high-risk groups, so that the epidemic began to be brought under control; however, Whenever the epidemic slows down, the SAR government seems to relax its vigilance and fail to further improve the quarantine loophole that has repeatedly detonated community transmission. For example, the emergence of this epidemic is because the authorities are willing to facilitate the operation of airlines. Betting on the risk of a re-emergence of the epidemic, the crew members were exempted from "mandatory" and "closed-loop" centralized quarantine, allowing them to self-discipline and isolate themselves at home. As a result, some people violated the rules and went out to dinner, and some people infect the family members who lived with them. Community transmission unstoppable.

In terms of confirmed cases and contingency measures, Hong Kong and Xi'an are of course not the same. After all, the two cities have completely different customs, scales and governance levels.

However, no matter what city, if you can't learn from failure, "failure" will probably appear infinitely.