China didn’t warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days, alleges report

[SRG01]

And other nation that are richer and more abundent resource can't do the same?

Taiwan, we're right next to China with large number of people going back and forth, especially during the Lunar holiday that occured when the virus was reported.

China's failure is not an excuse for other nation's inadequate reponse

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You misinterpret my point. I do not believe most rational and honest people would argue that it's an either-or scenario, whereby it's either China's fault or the Western world's fault. The vast majority of countries and organizations out there have failed in their response.

The point is that there are key, critical examples of countries that did well, and their responses should be regarded as examples for the rest of the world.

I was speaking about the scenario where it originated in a different country. I.e if the virus began in a Western country.

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If the virus originated in a Western country, then I would believe there would be more transparency about the initial data -- which would aid in the initial response. But yes, the outbreak would be fairly fast as well.

Having said that, there are also other confounding factors that made the Chinese situation a lot worse at the beginning, such as Lunar New Year, the Wuhan festival, etc.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

Just to be clear, I feel like I need you to clarify your position as it is not clear here.

My position is that because countries outside of China had the relevant information to know the virus was deadly and could be contracted through human contact, blaming China for dragging their feet before the virus reached other countries was unfair.

If I am reading your post correctly, your position is that China is to blame because it successfully broke out of their country and you feel the foot dragging on confirming human transmission was the cause?

Also, it really is important to point out that your argument about them not locking down the province earlier is pretty ridiculous when you consider where they were the day they announced the lockdown of over 50 million people: under 1000 confirmed cases and 25 deaths. Looking back, it is hard to remember but back in January virtually all discussion of this was called authoritarian and aggressive while now we have people seriously arguing it came too late. Why did no country which followed ever take a similarly aggressive and restrictive stance at a similar point in their infection? Why do you not blame them as adamantly?

Virtually all cases in the United States originated from Americans returning from Europe in February. How are these countries less responsible for the outbreak when they were the source of nearly the entire global spread?

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What relevant information? That's my point. You keep acting like just watching China on the news is perfectly enough information to extrapolate and create a sort of plan to combat the pandemic (KEEP THIS IN MIND, I have clearly referenced that other countries such as the United States should also be blamed for the approach. My point is that China made a concerted effort to suppress information within their own mainland, and that had significant implications for the rest of the world). Meanwhile, the country itself was facing claims from doctors that the virus is suspected to be heavily aggressive in its transmissions, and what is their first action? Censoring them. Because of that, every country was basically at square one before it was finally revealed that Covid-19 was able to be spread by human-to-human transmission. Again, I reiterate, I'm not saying that other countries are blameless (I even wrote out in my introductory point that "Just because all leadership failed around the world, doesn't mean it absolves China of what they did, or that we should ignore what they did wrong."), but China made decisions here that not only undermined their own health system, but also put the entire world at risk with their decision-making.

As for your second part, here you go with the whataboutism without understanding a shred of context. If you're referring to Taiwan choosing not to go with lockdown: This is because of their infection control protocol being amongst one of the best in the world as mentioned by multiple people ITT. At the same time, their curve has not spiralled out of control such that lockdown was justified. These are key pieces of information that many people here conveniently set aside when arguing that Taiwan did good as if it's a proper counter against China's suppression of information. This is also why I said that bringing Japan up is incredibly early given that they just recently declared a state of emergency. Aside from that, the people crying about "dRaCOnIaN/ToTAlITaRiAn" always talk out of their asses because they focused on anti-China sentiment instead of viewing the lockdown as a possible counter to a global health issue. WHO called it an unprecedented move as it went beyond infection control guidelines, but then also followed it up by saying that it showed commitment to contain the virus. Idk about you, but if WHO didn't call China out for being draconian, then that should say something.

 

[SilentPanda]

Yes. If human contact with wild life was more limited when we wouldn't be having a lot of diseases.

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Prof Stephen Turner, head of the department of microbiology at Melbourne's Monash University, says what's most likely is that virus originated in bats.

But that's where his certainty ends, he says.

On the hypothesis that the virus emerged at the Wuhan live animal market from an interaction between an animal and a human, Turner says: "I don't think it's conclusive by any means."

"Part of the problem is that the information is only as good as the surveillance," he says, adding that viruses of this type are circulating all the time in the animal kingdom.

The fact that the virus has infected a tiger in a New York zoo shows how viruses can move around between species, he says. "Understanding the breadth of species this virus can infect is important as it helps us narrow down down where it might have come from."

How did coronavirus start and where did it come from? Was it really Wuhan’s animal market?

It’s likely Covid-19 originated in bats, scientists say. But did it then spread to pangolins and humans?

www.theguardian.com

 

[Lunaray]

It's criminal neglect when China dragged their feet for 6 days, but when the rest of the Western world dragged their feet for months, including the leader of the free world calling it a hoax, it's all cool.

When China shut down Wuhan on Jan 23, EVERY government should have been put on notice, but nope, everyone was business as usual, treating this as a political issue instead of humanitarian one. Media members of both left and right bent writing shit like this. Chinese lives didn't matter. People only started paying attention when Italy was hit. I wonder why.

Probably has a little bit to do also with that sociological concept of "face" (or mianzi) that Chinese culture is obsessed with...

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Need to save face > need to save people.

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Fuck off with this racialized shit.

Just because all leadership failed around the world, doesn't mean it absolves China of what they did, or that we should ignore what they did wrong.
- They were basically ground zero for the virus, and withheld key information that could have limited the outbreak.
- Chinese authorities forced Dr. Wenliang to retract his warnings and lie about the virus for no reason (which was a direct consequence of China's state censorship), which forced the CCP to consider him a martyr after they had tried multiple times to censor outrage...see a key theme? They silenced whistleblowers.
- Research into whether the coronavirus was able to be transmitted by human-to-human contact was stymied for political reasons, such as wanting to carry on with the state meetings. Instead of a public health issue, this became a game of checkers where it became politicized.
- And as a side note on the point above, researchers also went into hospitals and got stymied when the proof was in the pudding that cluster infections were a sign of human-to-human transmissions.
- And IMO worst of all, WHC arbitrarily changed the diagnostic criteria which resulted in doctors being unable to diagnose the proper coronavirus case as such. Which in turn, made it seem as if covid-19 was just a fleeting epidemic. This is a failure of Chinese governance as a whole. Why didn't the CCP intervene? Especially with the outrage that was coming from Chinese doctors, and their population.

I'm sorry but as far as we're concerned, China deserves to face their day. If the roles were reversed, and this was the United States instead (and they DID do a lot of dumb shit), everyone would be calling out for their heads. And rightfully so.

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The US knew everything they needed to know about covid in January when they had no/single digit cases and did nothing for two months. But blaming other countries is America's favorite pastime so I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

The US knew everything they needed to know about covid in January when they had no/single digit cases and did nothing for two months. But blaming other countries is America's favorite pastime so I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

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"Just because all leadership failed around the world, doesn't mean it absolves China of what they did, or that we should ignore what they did wrong."

Learn to read before you misinterpret things.

 

[EN1GMA]

I don't think anyone is trying to erase the blame from western countries by bringing to light the missteps that China took. The article is about China and discussing it does not mean we forget about everything else.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

I don't think anyone is trying to erase the blame from western countries by bringing to light the missteps that China took. The article is about China and discussing it does not mean we forget about everything else.

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THANK YOU. Someone gets it.

 

[platocplx]

I don't think anyone is trying to erase the blame from western countries by bringing to light the missteps that China took. The article is about China and discussing it does not mean we forget about everything else.

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exactly its not just china alone, china helped to exacerbate the issues, on top of the US having a shitty reaction as soon as we had the first case.

 

[XMonkey]

It's criminal neglect when China dragged their feet for 6 days, but when the rest of the Western world dragged their feet for months, including the leader of the free world calling it a hoax, it's all cool.

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This isn't what's happening here, or even a valid take if it were, so send that strawman somewhere else.

 

[elty]

Hindsight is 20/20. I also wish I know the lottery number 6 days before it was drawn.

 

[data west]

I see the fingerpointing is in full effect. Considering everything we've seen thus far, i find it very ridiculous to be laying blame at China's feet when European and American governments did nothing to prepare for it. Xi and the CCP suck and are terrible but choosing this issue in particular to hit them over is ludicrous

seriously

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Are you trying to get your social credit up or something?

 

[DukeBlueBall]

"Just because all leadership failed around the world, doesn't mean it absolves China of what they did, or that we should ignore what they did wrong."

Learn to read before you misinterpret things.

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I agree. But I don't think the response of the country in which the country originates should be judged as along the same criteria as the countries getting hit much later.

 

[Lunaray]

You know what, forget it.

 

[Maximo]

We need to focus all efforts on addressing the current public health crisis, but once that ends, the breadth of accountability for the damage will be really interesting to follow. Some sanctions are going to be very dramatic, I think.

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Nothing will be done people will continue to manufactor and buy from China, hell multiple companies like Apple,Dell,Nike have already accepted that China put thousands of Uighur prisoners in forced Labour to continue production, virus could cause millions more in deaths and it would be no more then a stepping stone to people in charge.

 

[Serpens007]

This has been brought up several times: many countries learned from SARS and previous outbreaks, and did not hesitate when the virus popped up on their radar.

Also, Taiwan has a powerful national health task force that can redirect public resources and policy in situations like this.

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Precisely my point. I cannot say for sure if, how much of it, and to what extent China hid information. Despite this, the writing was on the wall, and even with this "6 days delay" countries in the world had time to react.

You can criticize China on it's initial handling, but in no way it can be a "if they had said it 6 days earlier, the world wouldn't be like this now". That's just being unable to accept the failures of our countries in the west.

 

[Fergie]

The most glaring thing is China downplaying their numbers.

 

[Candescence]

Of course a lot of countries fucked up with their response, but that doesn't absolve the CCP of covering up the initial reports of the virus and prioritizing political order over public safety. (Prioritizing political order over solving problems in general is also something that has been raised as a potential issue with Xi Jinping's absolute control over the government; that subordinates on any level would be more inclined to be yes men rather than actively raise the alarm over problems and risk making their leader look bad.)

The virus also started the same way SARS did - the wet markets and wildlife trade that should've been made illegal years ago, but the CCP caved to lobbying from the wildlife trade industry (which in itself is horrifying in its treatment of animals) and made it legal again once SARS blew over. We likely wouldn't have this disaster at all (or at least there would've been a significantly lower chance of it happening) were it not for China's government pandering to an 'industry' that shouldn't be legal.

 

[DukeBlueBall]

We likely wouldn't have this disaster at all (or at least there would've been a significantly lower chance of it happening) were it not for China's government pandering to an 'industry' that shouldn't be legal.

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It's finally made illegal. But knowing China, the trade will go underground.

 

[Candescence]

It's finally made illegal. But knowing China, the trade will go underground.

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Yeah, that's my worry as well. Either that, or the new restrictions will be repealed. Again.

Hopefully there is actual pressure on China to crack down on the wildlife trade after Covid-19 is finally past us.

 

[MisterAnderson]

After all ends up being said and done, China and Covid-19 will make Chernonyl look like a weekend vacation.

Spoiler

It already does.

 

[Maccix]

Support them having millions on concentration camps could be a measure, oh wait, thats something they already do.

Then Im out of ideas.

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The world has shown to not care about the US detention centers

 

[nopressure]

The thing is, I don't believe for a second many Western countries (lol USA) would have done anything different in the same position.

 

[NeonCarbon]

The thing is, I don't believe for a second many Western countries (lol USA) would have done anything different in the same position.

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Exactly. My country took months to react, while we could all see what was happening in China.

Plenty of time to blame China once this is over, but for now we should be holding our own countries accountable and focusing on our response.

 

[Shodan14]

The thing is, I don't believe for a second many Western countries (lol USA) would have done anything different in the same position.

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No, most countries don't need to go through multiple levels of party political mechanisms for their IHR contact points to notify WHO (and the world).

 

[nanskee]

It's criminal. Lying about the amount of cases and deaths is also criminal, because it downplays the severity of the illness. People weren't taking it too seriously until we got substantial numbers from Iran and italy

 

[Froli]

CCP makes people like this dissappear

Lawyer Chen Quiushi documenting coronavirus epicentre disappears

 

[DukeBlueBall]

People weren't taking it too seriously until we got substantial numbers from Iran and italy

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You're basically saying people didn't take it seriously because it was merely Chinese people dying by the thousands.

 

[deathkiller]

No, most countries don't need to go through multiple levels of party political mechanisms for their IHR contact points to notify WHO (and the world).

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I can only give the opinion about my country, Spain. If the outbreak had began here we obviously would had let doctor be as transparent as they wanted. But, the decision of shutting everything would still had been too late. This is because it means loosing at very least one quarter of the economy and no politician would had done that in time if there was even the smallest possibility that it wasn't as bad.

 

[gutter_trash]

I don't think anyone is trying to erase the blame from western countries by bringing to light the missteps that China took. The article is about China and discussing it does not mean we forget about everything else.

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Thank You!

 

[Jeff6851]

Article says they waited till January 20 but here's an article from AP on January 15

China: Possible that new virus could spread between humans

Chinese officials say they have not ruled out the possibility of limited human-to-human transmission of a new virus discovered in the central city of Wuhan.

apnews.com

China Daily on January 9

New virus behind pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan

A new virus has caused the pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei province, that resulted in 59 reported cases in the city as of Sunday, an initial evaluation showed.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

Tweet from People's Daily on January 8

People's Daily, China on Twitter

“Experts say the previously unidentified pneumonia in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, which has had 59 confirmed cases, is believed to be a new type of coronavirus.”

twitter.com

Also from AP

However, other health experts said the government took decisive action in private given the information available to them.

"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 Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.

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China didn't warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days

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.

apnews.com

 

[Shodan14]

I can only give the opinion about my country, Spain. If the outbreak had began here we obviously would had let doctor be as transparent as they wanted. But, the decision of shutting everything would still had been too late. This is because it means loosing at very least one quarter of the economy and no politician would had done that in time if there was even the smallest possibility that it wasn't as bad.

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Of course, notification is different than full on quarantine which is pretty much unprecedented.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

It's already happening, but when the final accounting is listed out with documentation, the blame for American deaths should be apportioned like this:

1. A stateless natural disaster that while predictable, is difficult to counter.
2. China's early mistakes and deception - based entirely on internal and geopolitical power politics.
2a. An American political party and its sponsors, that has abandoned all pretense of governance or morality and enables monsters and madness to retain power it has stolen in pursuit of power and money.
2b. A Media and Economy that has conceded profit is more important than principle and is guided by the invisible hand with little correction.
3. Trump's vast range of mental illness, incompetence, narcissism, stupidity and evil.
4. The American public as a body, allowing itself to be lied to because of small individual evils that are easily exploited.
5. Leadership at WHO making bad calculations and errors that are amplified and necessitated by aspects of one through four - errors that may or may not be justified in the sense that threading the needle between Chinese recalcitrence and American incompetence may still have been a strategy that saved lives versus early apolitical pulling of the emergency cords.
6. The American public as individuals - doing petty little microscopic harms, like jogging in a park with allergies, or going to Spring Break with their frat brothers, or half heartedly washing their hands. We will all be guilty of number 6 in varying degrees - and it will be up to 4 and 6 to fix the harm and take steps to ameliorate the inevitable next one.
7. Brother in law who dropped off large pizza with Cheese, ginger and guano.

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This. It was the perfect storm of shit from all sides.

 

[nanskee]

You're basically saying people didn't take it seriously because it was merely Chinese people dying by the thousands.

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I don't think so, rather the total cases compared to the total deaths were not substantial. If out of 80,000 resolved cases, 3,000 people died that a case mortality rate of almost 4%, furthermore 80,000 cases for a population of 1.4 billion over the course of let's say 4 months isn't substantial; it allows us to conclude that the disease doesn't spread too easily and not too fast. These are under the assumption that the numbers from China were true.

As soon as we observed the numbers from Italy and Iran the number of cases and deaths, people began to question the numbers from China.

The 4% case fatality rate doesn't match up with the almost 20% we're seeing in other countries.

 

[DukeBlueBall]

The 4% case fatality rate doesn't match up with the almost 20% we're seeing in other countries.

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There are no countries with 20% CFR.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

trump went like 2 months downplaying it lol

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He wasted at least 70 days

 

[nanskee]

There are no countries with 20% CFR.

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You're right I was looking at resolved cases. My mistake