
China Didn't Warn Public of Likely Pandemic For 6 Key Days (apnews.com) 350
The Associated Press: In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations. President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data.
Six days. That delay from Jan. 14 to Jan. 20 was neither the first mistake made by Chinese officials at all levels in confronting the outbreak, nor the longest lag, as governments around the world have dragged their feet for weeks and even months in addressing the virus. But the delay by the first country to face the new coronavirus came at a critical time -- the beginning of the outbreak. China's attempt to walk a line between alerting the public and avoiding panic set the stage for a pandemic that has infected almost 2 million people and taken more than 126,000 lives.
Six days. That delay from Jan. 14 to Jan. 20 was neither the first mistake made by Chinese officials at all levels in confronting the outbreak, nor the longest lag, as governments around the world have dragged their feet for weeks and even months in addressing the virus. But the delay by the first country to face the new coronavirus came at a critical time -- the beginning of the outbreak. China's attempt to walk a line between alerting the public and avoiding panic set the stage for a pandemic that has infected almost 2 million people and taken more than 126,000 lives.
6 days vs 6 weeks (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump ignored this for 6 weeks yet he is trying to blame the Chinese for 6 days
That was my second thought (Score:3, Informative)
That said, China seems to have downplayed things. What I don't know is if that was to prevent hysteria or because they thought it was politically expedient.
A for Trump, that 6 week gap [realclearpolitics.com] is inexcusable. As recently as Feb 28th he was calling it a Democrat Hoax [nbcnews.com].
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Informative)
Feb 28th he was calling it a Democrat Hoax [nbcnews.com].
That's BS.. You are misrepresenting what Trump actually said.
He never called the virus a hoax, he called the democrat claim that he didn't react appropriately a hoax. He called your attempts to lie about what was said a hoax. So this post of yours is part of the hoax Trump was talking about.
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the magic of how Trump talks: you never really know what he means. If it was a hoax, he could say "see, told you so". Or he can change what he meant by "hoax" to point at the Democrats. Or maybe it was a Chinese hoax designed to bankrupt America. Several things are plausible.
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Informative)
That the Trump administration "banned flights," "closed the borders," or "stopped flights" from first China and later the European Union to halt the spread of COVID-19 has become a staple of its defense of its response to the pandemic. But it simply isn't true. At no time through the course of this awful period have flights even once been halted between either China and the U.S. or Europe - including even Italy - and the United States.
Keep repeating the lie.
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Informative)
The Trump administration did impose travel restrictions between China and the U.S., and later Europe and the U.S., but both actions have loopholes large enough to fly a 777 through. In the case of China, on Jan. 31 — weeks after it was known that the coronavirus was a serious problem — the administration restricted travel for “foreign nationals who had been in China in the last 14 days.”
So, despite the editorializing, the article admits that he did enact a ban. So my point holds: Trump enacted a ban because of the epidemic. So after he took action you're claiming that he called the epidemic a hoax? Sure. Keep repeating that lie.
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you retarded? Yes, you are.
They implemented a travel ban for flights coming from China, pretty much immediately after "Dr." Tedros from the WHO said travel bans weren't necessary (other countries did the same, because they knew the WHO was China's bitch).
No, it wasn't a total ban on all flights where we shot them out of the sky. We directed all such flights to a limited number of airports where we could screen all passengers, forcefully quarantine foreigners, and keep tabs on US citizens (who we can't
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I am a native English speaker. The only way I could see you thinking he is crystal clear is if you take his meaning as whatever you want to hear. Have you ever disagreed with President Trump?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not only a native English speaker, I'm an author and editor with nearly 30 years experience in broadcast news and technical publishing.
Trump is very good at speaking words that push people's emotional buttons, but when you subject his output to analysis and cut through all the bullshit, you discover very quickly that he actually says... well, nothing, really.
He depends on people like you to make excuses for him, which you rationalise because he sounds good to you. So please don't waste any more of your
Re: (Score:3)
A "hoax" is a fake thing. What about Democrat's word were a hoax? They said he wasn't taking in seriously, wasn't preparing. He wasn't. They said he was downplaying the severity. He said "There's like 15 cases in the US now, probably down to zero next week".
So... he said it was a hoax. But, well, it wasn't a hoax, and Trump mostly ignored it when he should have been dealing with it. Except for cleverly closing the border to China AFTER coronavirus cases were already in the US, which is tactically mor
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Informative)
What 6 week gap? As recently as January 31st he had banned Chinese travel.
And it did exactly nothing to slow down the virus. At most a 3-5 day delay: https://science.sciencemag.org... [sciencemag.org] . The ban was simply a typical Trumpian way to throw red meat to his rabid base, without doing anything actually effective.
Prior examples: travel bans for certain Arabic countries because of "terrorism".
Re: (Score:2)
Dr. Anthony Fauci: Travel Ban To China Absolutely Made A Difference [realclearpolitics.com]
Obama Selected The List Of Muslim Countries in Trump’s Executive Order [townhall.com]
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation [wikipedia.org]
"57 member states, with a collective population of over 1.8 billion as of 2015 with 53 countries being Muslim-majority countries"
Terrorism, not "terrorism."
Re: (Score:3)
And nope, Trump instituted the ban, not Obama. So yep, "terrorism" - as Saudi Arabia was not banned.
Re: (Score:3)
It was the right move and did buy some small amount of time. The problem is Trump drank his own koolaid and thought that would fix the issue because after all, xenophobia just feels good for his ilk. The U.S. didn't ramp up testing production and adequately plan for contact tracing both before being warned as a precaution, and after being warned. Now he's trying to shift all blame the WHO.
South Korea doesn't seem to have had the problems we are having, and there's no real reason to doubt their statistic
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Informative)
January20: "I know more about viruses than anyone."
January 22: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. It's going to be just fine."
February 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
February 24: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA⦠Stock Market starting to look very good to me!"
February 25: "CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus."
February 25: "I think that's a problem that's going to go away... They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we're very close to a vaccine."
February 26: "The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero."
February 26: "We're going very substantially down, not up."
February 27: "One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear."
February 28: "We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical."
March 2: "You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?"
March 2: "A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they're happening very rapidly."
March 4: "If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work â" some of them go to work, but they get better."
March 5: "I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work."
March 5: "The United States has, as of now, only 129 cases and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!"
March 6: "I think we're doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down⦠a tremendous job at keeping it down."
March 6: "Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They're there. And the tests are beautifulâ¦. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good."
March 6: "I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it⦠Every one of these doctors said, âHow do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."
March 6: "I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."
March 8: "We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus."
March 9: "This blindsided the world."
March 13: "National emergency, two big words."
March 13: "When you compare what we've done to other areas of the world, it's pretty incredible."
March 13: "Five million (tests) within a month... I doubt we'll need anything near that."
March 13: "I don't take responsibility at all."
March 14. "It's something that nobody expected⦠it's one of those things that happened. It's nobody's fault."
March 15: "This is a very contagious virus. It's incredible. But it's something that we have tremendous control over"
March 17: "I have always known this is a real, this is a pandemic. I've felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic⦠I've always viewed it as very serious."
March 19: "If we had an honest media in this country, our country would be an even greater place."
March 19: "It could have been stopped, could have been stopped pretty easily if we had known, if everybody had known about it⦠Nobody knew there'd be a pandemic⦠of this proportion."
March 25: "Nobody could have ever seen something like this coming."
March 25: "It's hard not be happy with the job we're doing, that I can tell you."
March 26: "I don't believe you need 40,000 or
Re:That was my second thought (Score:4, Informative)
Why do you have nothing listed for the month of February? (hint: It's because Trump did nothing).
BTW, don't ask Trump about that - he might have another meltdown, like he did when a reporter asked him that very question.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:That was my second thought (Score:5, Informative)
They're lying, even Snopes says [snopes.com] "Despite creating some confusion with his remarks, Trump did not call the coronavirus itself a hoax."
Re:That was my second thought (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called a "double entendre". Trump knew idiots on both sides would think he called it a hoax and smart people like yourself would think otherwise. He knew how people would (mis)understand what he said, so both interpretations were intentional. He meant both.
He does that a lot, have you noticed? He'll say one thing and then claim he didn't say it.
Re:That was my second thought (Score:5, Insightful)
They're lying, even Snopes says [snopes.com] "Despite creating some confusion with his remarks, Trump did not call the coronavirus itself a hoax."
The funny thing is, he was calling the Democratic Party's messaging on the urgency of an aggressive response to the nascent pandemic a hoax. You might get hung up on the semantics of whether or not he believed it was an actual pandemic or a hoax, but the larger picture is that he knew it was a pandemic, was being told by the CDC and Intelligence officials that it was a pandemic, and yet he went on camera and to campaign events and aggressively downplayed the urgent need to take action, and calling THAT perspective from the Democrats a hoax.
Knowing that something is an existential threat to the entire country - right, left and center - and calling people sounding the alarm about it hoaxers is really... well the opposite of the sort of person one would want running a country.
Re: (Score:3)
Feel free to explain what strawman I erected or quote the part of the article that supports the GP.
Re: (Score:3)
If you only look at this year, yes. I haven't seen any discussion of how likely it is to be a recurring seasonal thing with new strains popping up like the flu. I'm not really sure we have the data for that yet, or if that's just too low a priority to work out or report on.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Trump listed to the experts:
On Feb 29, Dr. Fauci on coronavirus fears: No need to change lifestyle yet [today.com]
Your infantile blame game is getting tiresome.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Dr. Fauci said in that interview that people shouldn't change their lifestyle at that point. Later he followed that up with
Hopefully we can protect the American public from any serious degree of morbidity and mortality. That's the reason why we've got to do the things we have in our plan.
So as a person, Trump didn't need to do anything yet to protect himself, but as a part of the government there were definitely actions he needed to take.
Re:6 days vs 6 weeks (Score:4, Insightful)
More to the point, the assumption is that what he says in private is the same as what he says in public. This is nearly guaranteed to be false. In public he is required to be a LOT more diplomatic. Watch him waffle around about reopening the country in May. If you listen it's clear that he doesn't like the idea, but he's not willing to directly contradict Trump if he can possibly avoid it. And he's not willing to blame Trump.
Re:6 days vs 6 weeks (Score:4, Informative)
Trump listed to the experts:
Did he? You mean during the multiple press conferences where he directly contradicted the experts who spoke immediately before he did? But good work finding one cherry picked example of where a single expert said something different. You will be well rewarded for your post Trump shill.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump listed to the experts:
On Feb 29, Dr. Fauci on coronavirus fears: No need to change lifestyle yet [today.com]
Your infantile blame game is getting tiresome.
Aww, it's sooo cute. Pretending that removing the last epidemiologist from China last August did nothing bad. Such a good little MAGAt. Ignoring all those warnings from other groups, such a good little MAGAt. Issuing a porous travel limitation that did nothing really, so much action from Predisent Twumpy, such a a good little MAGAt. Proceeding to have self-congratulatory rallies with the MAGA/KAGA faithful claiming the virus was being hyped up by the durty demonrats while Faux Newz and One Amerika Newz Net
Re: (Score:2)
Either you are missing something or this is inexplicable.
January 31, 2020 - US declares health emergency, bans most travelers from China [mercurynews.com]
Re: (Score:3)
You can't force American citizens to remain in another country like that. You have to screen them on arrival. The screenings might not have gone well, and maybe we should have had more-aggressive quarantines for people returning from China, but still.
Re: (Score:3)
You are a moron. The US did not do similar things to all travelers returning.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]
https://katu.com/news/local/tu... [katu.com]
https://thehill.com/policy/tra... [thehill.com]
https://thepointsguy.com/news/... [thepointsguy.com]
Re: 6 days vs 6 weeks (Score:2)
Yes, they determined they had a pandemic on their hands and then allowed a giant multi-day festival to continue that included a massive government sponsored hot pot event which infected at absolute minimum another 3000 people.
Re: (Score:3)
The UK has a massive horse racing gathering with 250,000 people that likely spread the disease far and wide. Italy had a major football match that probably hurt them pretty badly.
Many countries reacted too late and were in denial at first.
Re: (Score:2)
I recall that 3000 fans came from Madrid to Liverpool for a big incubation party right before lockdowns started
Re:6 days vs 6 weeks (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight. China, the source of the pandemic, said nothing about the virus's spread for nearly a week and allowed more than 3,000 people to be infected by that time, and your go to response is to turn it around on Trump, who had to choose to shut down all borders versus China simply telling the world, "Hey, we just started a pandemic. You may want to prepare."
China didn't just keep quiet, it forcefully kept any medical personnel from talking about it. Doctors like ophthalmologist Li Wenliang at a hospital in Wuhan, who tried to warn the world via WeChat but was then paid a visit by by police who muzzled him. BTW, Dr. Wenliange later died from coronavirus.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Part of being a leader is taking the blame. Trump likes to take all the credit and none of the blame. Can't have it both ways. If you're going to brag about stupid shit, better be ready to get blamed for the bad.
Re: (Score:3)
Except this article isn't about Trump; it's about China's suppression of information around the outbreak. Keep that in mind. China didn't just stay quiet, it forcefully prevented information from being disseminated causing the pandemic to take place.
Had this been an article about Trump not responding fast enough -- perhaps comparing Trump's response to Bush's or Obama's regarding H1N1 before him -- sure, comment away on how poorly our current president has responded.
FTA:"In the six days after top Chinese o
Re: (Score:2)
China didn't just keep quiet, it forcefully kept any medical personnel from talking about it. Doctors like ophthalmologist Li Wenliang at a hospital in Wuhan, who tried to warn the world via WeChat but was then paid a visit by by police who muzzled him. BTW, Dr. Wenliange later died from coronavirus.
Good luck logging into PubMed.cn after that statement. ;)
Re: (Score:3)
Dr. Wenliange later died from Lead poisoning.
Fixed
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight. China, the source of the pandemic, said nothing about the virus's spread for nearly a week and allowed more than 3,000 people to be infected by that time, and your go to response is to turn it around on Trump, who had to choose to shut down all borders versus China simply telling the world, "Hey, we just started a pandemic. You may want to prepare."
Yes. It's important to understand why something that was well known in February and covered widely in the media in February is suddenly news again now. It's an attempt to distract. Turn around and look at the people trying to distract you from their incompetence.
Or don't. Just pretend it's all China's fault.
Re: (Score:2)
You are modeling China, or at least the Chinese government, as a unitary entity. This is incorrect. It's a major bureaucracy with lots of individuals guarding fiefs. Have you EVER tried to get a major change through a bureaucracy? Six days is incredibly fast. I've known individual people to dither for longer than that.
So the first reports of a major change required get through to one of the top people. Does he trust them? What happens to him if he makes a major change and it's unnecessary? (Losing h
Re: (Score:2)
Not all borders, just China's. And that was an easy decision because he was engaged in a trade war with China and knew it would harm China's economy.
Trump didn't do anything about the virus that wasn't self-serving until March.
Re: (Score:2)
January 31, 2020 - US declares health emergency, bans most travelers from China [mercurynews.com]
President Donald Trump has signed an order that will temporarily bar entry to the U.S. of foreign nationals, other than immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled in China within the last 14 days. The new restrictions take effect at 5 p.m. EST on Sunday. . . . Americans returning from China will be allowed into the country, but will face screening at select ports of entry and required to undertake 14 days of self-screening to ensure they don’t pose a health risk. Those returning from Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine.
That was later followed with action regarding flights from Europe (- UK ) and later the UK.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/pre... [whitehouse.gov]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
He was just a little busy with being impeached through early Feb., and yet formed the coronavirus taskforce on Jan 29, a day before the WHO announced an emergency. And then blocked travel on Jan 30.
Check the timeline (Score:4, Informative)
This isn't a surprise, Trump was always going to get impeached in the House and acquitted in the Senate. He didn't need to put any effort into his response. It was all a forgone conclusion.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I guess January is the new March. What is March now?
January 31, 2020 - US declares health emergency, bans most travelers from China [mercurynews.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most leaders, most places were slow to take this seriously. I think that's because of the limits of common sense. Common sense is a reliable guide -- to things you've had a lot of experience dealing with. For things outside your experience, common sense is useless.
The one standout country in this whole COVID-19 mess is South Korea. It's not because South Korea's government is intrinsically any better than everyone else's, but they just had an outbreak of MERS in 2012 and another in 2015. While this was m
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, it's all Trumps fault, right?
On Jan. 30, the CDC had confirmed the first case of person to person transmission in the U.S
On January 31, HHS declared Coronavirus a Public Health Emergency in the US
On Jan. 31, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a federal quarantine for 14 days affecting the 195 American evacuees from Wuhan, China
President Donald Trump signed an order on Jan. 31 for the U.S. to deny entry to foreign nationals who traveled to China
Oh, and this while he was st
Re: (Score:3)
You realize that nobody would have had to respond to Covid-19 if the PRC had just contained it, right? Oh sure, let's shift blame again and again to protect poor Xi Jinping.
Re:6 days vs 6 weeks (Score:4, Funny)
Except Trump isn't king. States and private entities took action without waiting for Trump's blessing.
We know, now go tell him that.
Re: (Score:2)
There was no travel ban from China, 40,000 Americans returned from China AFTER the so-called travel ban
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, so you would support an American president telling citizens they can't return home ?
Re: (Score:2)
I see.
January 31, 2020 - US declares health emergency, bans most travelers from China [mercurynews.com]
. . . President Donald Trump has signed an order that will temporarily bar entry to the U.S. of foreign nationals, other than immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled in China within the last 14 days. The new restrictions take effect at 5 p.m. EST on Sunday. . . . Americans returning from China will be allowed into the country, but will face screening at select ports of entry and required to undertake 14 days of self-screening to ensure they don’t pose a health risk. Those returning from Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine. Beginning Sunday, the U.S. will also begin funneling all flights to the U.S. from China to seven major airports where passengers can be screened for illness.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Right - on Jan 31 (ok this article says numbers are from feb 4) - there were according to this article: https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-... [cnn.com]:
china: 9700
Everyone else:
less than 20
everyone else outside asia:
less than 10.
Obviously it progressed how it did, but based on those numbers, how exactly would you think it would be done differently ?
Re: (Score:2)
Taiwan (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Easy - you can criticize multiple actions.
It's pretty easy, and generally done in a post mortem. In fact, assigning blame to a single actor is normally almost impossible, outside scooby doo.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:China knew about COVID-19 in November 2019 (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not impossible for two things or people to be bad at the same time.
Yes, Orange Man bad. Yes, CCP bad. What's the tension? Trump's delay was just as inexcusable as the Chinese'.
Stop playing this as either/or. Trump is a dangerous idiot. Xi is a dangerous competent autocrat. Both are bad.
Re: (Score:2)
I recall at the time people were impressed with the speed the Chinese had isolated the virus and sequenced it.
If you want to defend Trump the appropriate way would be: what were his advisors telling him. if he was being stupid against what all his advisors insisted on then it's all his fault. But if the advisors took a long time before the seriousness of the problem dawned on them then Trump does not carry much of the blame.
Everyone goes to a stage of caution , cautious denial or arrogant denial before they
Re:China knew about COVID-19 in November 2019 (Score:4, Insightful)
China was hiding the fact that this was transmissible between people until January 20, but the US has other means to find out what's going on in China than relying on official statements.
DIA had been tracking this since November and warned the president in the January 3 Presidential Daily Brief this was heading for the US, over two weeks before the first reported US case.
One of the things that really surprised me about Donald Trump after he assumed office is that he continued to rely on partisan media reports to find out what was happening in the world, when he had the CIA, NSA, and DIA at his fingertips. I guess he was set in his ways.
I don't know about you, (Score:3)
The fact that China is also bad doesn't make Trump a better or more capable administrator. This isn't a sporting event or a game show.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
China sat on this info for two months
False. Being able to retrospectively trace a virus back and knowing about that case at the time are two different things. In retrospect we are able to trace a lot of cases back through to December and earlier, but at the time they were nothing more than standard cases of pneumonia. It wasn't even until late December that abnormally high rates of pneumonia were registered in Wuhan hospitals and investigations started looking if there were cases of SARS, and it wasn't until very early January that it was iden
Re: (Score:2)
False. "On December 27, Zhang Jixian, a doctor from Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, told China’s health authorities that the disease was caused by a new coronavirus." It wasn't obvious until then.
Back then they hadn't yet isolated the virus -- and also it wasn't clear how severe it was and how/whether it was different from SARS. They only knew there was a new virus of some sort in late December. Isolating and releasing the virus sequence on January 10 is reasona
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't list Italy as among those doing much better than the US. To be fair though, they had a lot less warning.
Some tried to Warn. They got disappeared (Score:5, Informative)
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) responding to @SpokespersonCHN who said "Welcome to China anytime and talk to anyone in the streets to enjoy the freedom."
First, I would like to speak with Dr. AI Fen.
She worked at Wuhan Central Hospital and tried to sound the alarm on the virus.
Could you un-disappear her so we could speak?https://t.co/yvxGSKSEk9 [t.co]
https://t.co/mbL08cR4tW [t.co]
2. Next, I’d like to speak with Chen Qiushi and Fang Bin – two video bloggers that tried to bring the world a glimpse of Wuhan unfiltered by your Communist regime.
Could you un-disappear them so we could speak?https://t.co/0ndiKKjQYZ [t.co]
3. I’d like to speak with Li Zehua next.
He worked as a journalist in Wuhan and refused to stay silent on Covid. In his last report, he live-streamed his own arrest.
Could you un-disappear him so we could speak?https://t.co/KHg7JzqcJh [t.co]
4. I’d then like to speak with Xu Zhiyong.
He was arrested after he criticized your party leader for his botched handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
Could you un-disappear him so we could speak? https://t.co/8SLrohSMPs [t.co]
5. They’re not available for comment? That’s odd.
Then let me speak with Ren Zhiqiang.
He committed the high crime of writing an article criticizing your regime’s attempt to cover up the Covid outbreak.
Could you un-disappear him so we could speak?https://t.co/8vPghCb4T1 [t.co]
6. Ok, how about the hero doctor Li Wenliang then?
He was dragged to a police station in the middle of the night and forced to recant the early warning he wanted the world to hear.https://t.co/8B8UNZKHK0 [t.co]
7. Could I speak with Xu Zhangrun?
He’s a law professor in Beijing that wrote an essay titled “Viral Alarm.”
It says what the world knows: your authoritarian regime and censorship hindered efforts to slow Covid’s spread.
Could you un-disappear him?https://t.co/rSrDFkYf1v [t.co]
8. I’d then like to speak with Xie Linka who worked at Wuhan Union Hospital.
She joined other Wuhan health officials in trying to sound the alarm on Covid before being berated and forced into silence by communist officials.
Can I speak with her?https://t.co/Yx1V3Z3Byk [t.co]
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you want to speak? You think you're going to find out something you don't already know?
Re:Some tried to Warn. They got disappeared (Score:4, Funny)
The shills request a moment while they figure out how to respond...
Read the details, please (Score:2)
From this internal memo the TFA claims to obtain, it said:
Under a section titled “sober understanding of the situation,” the memo said that “clustered cases suggest that human-to-human transmission is possible.” It singled out the case in Thailand, saying that the situation had “changed significantly” because of the possible spread of the virus abroad.
So the officials didn't lie. They only thought human-to-human transmission is possible but not conclusive even internally, which is also consistent with their public message.
“They may not have said the right thing, but they were doing the right thing,” said Ray Yip, the retired founding head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s office in China. “On the 20th, they sounded the alarm for the whole country, which is not an unreasonable delay.”
If health officials raise the alarm prematurely, it can damage their credibility — “like crying wolf” —and cripple their ability to mobilize the public, said Benjamin Cowley, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.
They underestimated just like basically all other countries on this planet. The difference is that the other countries had witness Wuhan yet still chose to underestimate.
Legally speaking, China reported the new virus outbreak on December 32 to the WHO and notified the US on Jan.
China Doesn't Disclose A Lot of Things (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Assholes defending Trump (Score:2)
Actually, known at end of dec. (Score:3)
Oh look! A distraction. (Score:2)
I mean we covered this story in February : https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
We also covered it in January : https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Why would we cover it again now? Are we trying to create a distraction? Are we trying to point fingers while people die in ICUs? I mean yeah let's do that. Slashdot only covered well over 100 stories about this virus before Trump even bothered to pull his finger out, but it's all China's fault. And Slashdot is infamously slow at breaking news.
Posting here (Score:2)
So the Chinese leadership is lying trash, (Score:2)
just like our leadershit! I mean ship.
Even the AP news article is garbage (Score:3)
Its obviously revisionist history planted on behalf of the Chinese government.
The article babbles about the CCP delaying a crucial decision to come clean starting in Jan 14. But members of the Chinese gov't knew about the coronavirus weeks before that. In fact, one of the early whistleblowers (Dr. Li Wenyiang [thelancet.com]) was documented trying to send coronavirus warnings to his collegues on December 30th, and within a week gov't officials forced him to make a written retraction. The virus was probably on their radar since late November.
Re: (Score:2)
February 28: "We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical."
March 2: "You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?"
Huh. You seem to have missed something, something kind of BIG & IMPORTANT. I wonder why?
January 31, 2020 - US declares health emergency, bans most travelers from China [mercurynews.com]
President Donald Trump has signed an order that will temporarily bar entry to the U.S. of foreign nationals, other than immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled in China within the last 14 days. The new restrictions take effect at 5 p.m. EST on Sunday. . . . Americans returning from China will be allowed into the country, but will face screening at select ports of entry and required to undertake 14 days of self-screening to ensure they don’t pose a health risk. Those returning from Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, will be subject to up to 14 days of mandatory quarantine.
Re: (Score:3)
You seem not to understand the concept of infectious disease. Let me explain in simple terms:
Or the even easier option:
But wait, it gets worse:
Re: (Score:2)
Saying "nothing else he's done" has "helped people" is misleading at best. The intent seems disingenuous.
There is always more that could be done, and not all of this was done "right", but hospital ships, army corps, stimulus, PPE / ventilator sourcing / distribution, etc - isn't "nothing". It may not have been enough, or the right thing.
Sticking to your guns on calling China flight shutdowns racist still seems particularly bizarre.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you omitted a few key points:
December 31: China reports the discovery of the coronavirus to the World Health Organization.
January 6: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel notice for Wuhan, China due to the spreading coronavirus.
January 7: The CDC established a coronavirus incident management system to better share and respond to information about the virus.
January 11: The CDC issued a Level I travel health notice for Wuhan, China.
January 17: The CDC began implementing
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Headline: China Didn't Warn Public of Likely Pandemic For 6 Key Days
TDS sufferer: Oh, no! This story isn't about my favorite topic!
I know what people want, an list of out-of-context quotes that I've already repeatedly spammed to this forum!
The 28th time is what will finally convince people that "National emergency, two big words." is somehow damning.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Not only Slashdot. All techie sites are left-leaning. The tech giants are staffed, again, by left-leaning people. If you've been the dork in high school and then went to at least 4 years of university (which are leftist indoctrination camps) of course you end up on the left spectrum of politics. I know, because I was that way too.
No use trying to argue with leftists.
Re: (Score:2)
No. What the WHO said was that they didn't know that human transmission was what was going on. They didn't know HOW it was spread. I'm sure they had guesses. It's a respiratory disease, how could they not guess that it was spread via coughs and sneezes. But guesses aren't knowledge. FWIW, the last I checked they still don't know whether it can spread via aerosol transmission (i.e. via micro-droplets too small to be pulled to ground by gravity). Various people have asserted that they believe this happ
Re: (Score:2)
They weren't facing a pandemic at that point. What they were facing was an epidemic.
Re: (Score:2)
When it originated and when it was identified are two different things that happened at different times. IIUC it wasn't identified until December 2019. If it originated in Summer 2019 (I've no opinion) it probably required some mutations to be able to spread very well. If you want to know when it actually originated, check with someone who does evolutionary tracing of genetic codes. They'll be able to give you an approximate date of origin.
Re: (Score:2)
No. China hasn't learned either. Neither have most people. And what those who have learned something have learned isn't very useful. E.g. I've learned that if I wear a face mask and glasses at the same time, my glasses get too steamed up to see through. And that Safeway has a lousy selection of groceries that they are willing to deliver.