If we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it. It’s a trite but true saying most often applied to comparisons drawn from the distant past.

Today we have a choice. We can learn from the recent past – from the experience of Wuhan, China’s fight against the coronavirus – or we can repeat the distant past, ending up with a pandemic reminiscent of the 1918 Spanish flu.

Learning from Wuhan’s recent past is the only way we can prevent our nation from driving itself into a historic catastrophe

Though Wuhan has had the most cases of the coronavirus so far, if we continue much further along our national path of purposeful unpreparedness, specious comparisons, politicking, hesitation and ineptitude in our response to the pandemic, only our most lucky cities will be comparable to Wuhan. Learning from Wuhan’s recent past – and rapidly acting on those lessons – is the only way we can prevent our nation from driving itself into a historic catastrophe.

In a city of nearly 11 million, Wuhan’s approximately 67,000 cases amount to just 0.6% of its population. And despite the difficulty of obtaining accurate data amid the crisis, the World Health Organization (WHO) ground reports verify the numbers coming out of the city as credible. Given the (relatively high) estimated rates of transmissibility of this virus, how did Chinese officials in Wuhan keep it from spreading more rapidly?

Wuhan’s initial approach to the virus was to deny its existence, downplay its severity, and delay action. That errant approach is arguably responsible for the early-stage massive growth in infections caused by the new virus, infections that quickly overwhelmed the highly modern hospital system in the city.

According to a top WHO official returning from Wuhan, the coronavirus is the “Wayne Gretzky of viruses”. Initially the virus is unassuming and seems unthreatening – spreading to others even before symptoms appear – yet it’s ruthlessly effective, as it can cause a slow, prolonged death, maximizing its spread.

As soon as it was clear that the virus was swamping healthcare in Wuhan and threatening to engulf China more broadly, the Chinese government implemented radical social distancing measures, coupled with abundant free testing, attempting to slow the virus’s spread.

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Yet, even these social distancing measures – stopping outbound transportation, stalling public transit and driving, implementing mandatory mask-wearing, cancelling social gatherings, and requiring home quarantines – proved insufficient to halt the expansion of the virus.

Then, on 1 February, Wuhan switched to centralized quarantine, a decision that research has shown was essential in containing the spread of the virus to such a small portion of the city’s population. By delaying the implementation of the more radical measures, Wuhan let their problem metastasize. Their governmental hesitation produced more deaths.

Chinese officials saved tens of thousands of lives by acting as decisively as they did, when they did

Still, it could have been much, much worse. Chinese officials saved tens of thousands of lives by acting as decisively as they did, when they did. And the city’s path to containment has provided invaluable information and time for the rest of the world to get ahead of the virus.

In the US, we’re following Wuhan’s initial strategy of deny, downplay and delay without substantial indication that we’ll be willing to take the radical measures necessary to slow the spread of the virus. US officials are employing part of the Chinese playbook: the bad part. Unfortunately, this strategy is putting us solidly on course for a replay of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

While we’re probably past containment, we can still mitigate. Each day of inaction increases the probability our healthcare systems become overwhelmed by the long-lasting sickness. If we don’t act now, we’ll soon be asking: whose life is worth more? With the majority of the nation at risk, we have no time to waste.

Now isn’t the time for piecemeal efforts and calm, counterproductive comparisons. Now is the time for unified dramatic social, civic and governmental action – including immediate and mandatory social distancing in all areas with demonstrated community spread coupled with mass-scale quarantines. It’s time to follow the good part of the Wuhan playbook.

China used the analogy to war to mobilize its people’s response to the virus. It’s apt. The cost of further avoidance will be measured in the hundreds of thousands of ugly deaths of our loved ones.

Very few of us were alive to see the devastation of 1918, and we can only imagine the horrors of what could have happened had Wuhan not acted as they did. As we both watched this crisis start to unfold months ago, we worried that we might be on course for many of US cities to be as bad as Wuhan. Today we realize: we would be lucky to be Wuhan.