OT: COVID-19 thread #4

[MrSparkle]

If you want to get specific, our fatality and infection rate is closer to the H3N2 pandemic in the 60's than the 1918 pandemic. The Spanish Flu was actually much worse than what we are dealing with. So, 52 years.

Fair enough, I'm definitely not an infectious disease expert at all.

Given that we have a much larger, more interconnected population its reasonable to project that this stuff is going to happen more, not less often.

To the extent things can get out from one country and get to another country, yes absolutely. In terms of their being viruses that are deadly, spread quickly, etc, I'm not sure that is true.

Beyond that, people now have the idea of shutdowns in their mind. If a SARS epidemic happened again in 5 years, would we have global shutdowns? Some people would say yes. Going forward, I think we are going to be trigger happy and as such are going to be dealing with this a lot.

Will be interesting to see how this goes. I hope we don't get trigger happy here in the future though.

Certainly there is a risk that we will continue to have big problems unless we get better at dealing with medical challenges, infrastructure around how to deal with it etc...

Forgive the long rant here. I'm certainly no medical expert but I've read a wee bit about this.

There are a small handful of circulating coronaviruses. Each of them cause the common cold and full sterilizing immunity to them only last months. They circulate the globe in waves, taking turns with immunity to one conferring partial immunity to others. Scientists have tracked possibly all of them down to global pandemics. The last was OC43 which likely caused the Russian Flu pandemic of 1890. Symptoms from that are extremely similar to covid19.

Without a vaccine, the likely route for this pandemic is that everyone gets it a few times to the point where our adaptive immune system fights it off before it gets into our lungs or blood stream leaving it as a cold. Even with a vaccine, its very likely we never get rid of covid19. The short sterilizing immune time means this thing will always be able to bounce to new hosts until a large section of the population is susceptible.

I bring this up because coronaviruses live in bats and have evolved to be nasty due to bats' hyper aggressive immune system. There are over 200 separate coronaviruses in bats. Only 4 or 5 have jumped to humans . . . so far. dice brought up the wet markets above. We really need to globally cut down on bat handling. We are just asking for this kind of thing to happen regularly. covid19 is a goldilocks zone virus in that it infects easily, barely harms many but kills others. Who knows how many of those other coronaviruses would work the same.

Influenza is a completely different animal. There is a massive animal reservoir of it out there and it mutates quickly. Both birds and pigs can harbor. The huge concern is an antigenic shift where a pig or something gets infected with two separate influenza viruses at the same time and they cross merge forming a completely new virus. Again, animal handling is a big risk.

Regardless, I would not underestimate just how much risk we are in. There is some evidence that these jumps happen regularly but die out because it happens in isolated areas. As we become more connected, our risk goes up exponentially.

Now this part is true. I cringe when I hear "Wuhan virus", but wet markets do need to be curbed severely. They're a dangerous food market. I'll say that the whole global food industry in general is a dirty and nasty market, and unfortunately with all the money tied into it along with poor regulations in most countries, and a growing population that needs to be fed at cheaper prices, it's been a ticking time bomb. It'd be wise to prepare for an even worse scenario in the future.

But it's not like past US administrations ignored the potential of these outbreaks. The potential was always weighed heavily. It's absurd that in the midst of a global outbreak, the present administration ignored the magnitude of the outbreak. Leaving WHO instead of doubling collaboration and support was stupid.

[Dresden]

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-virus-italy-december.html

There is a case where sewers in Italy were testing positive for covid in December. They, like the LA study, had a statistically significant increase in pneumonia cases before the new year. I can point to countless data points like this. One you can dismiss but when you look at the totality of them, its pretty obvious that this was spreading far and wide around the world in 2019.

You have kept up on covid and are fully aware of just how bad it is. Now, apply your knowledge here. Would it be possible for a city to have completely unchecked community spread for months without noticing it? If the answer is no (which it obviously is), the Chinese were lying and covering up. Unless we do something, they are going to do it again. There was only 18 years between SARS-1 and covid19. We will be due for our next global meltdown in 2038 unless we take extraordinary steps here.

If we had a different leader and did everything right, we would be Germany . . . who has spent most of 2020 in lockdown and lost 14k lives (and they are 1/4th our size). I really don't ever want to have this happen again and accomplishing that is going to require us shutting it down at the source.

As far as I can discern, the generally accepted timeline for the outbreak is something like this: the first case is considered to be a 55 year old man in Hubei province in mid November. There were 9 others who were thought to be infected in November as well. The next event that comes on the radar is a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan in mid December, with an unknown cause. Lung fluid was sent to be tested at an outside lab to determine the cause, and the results came back on Dec. 27th, showing the existence on an unknown coronavirus. A public statement was issued by the Wuhan CDC on Dec. 31st of a virus of unknown origin.

So the time between when doctors started noticing clusters of pneumonia of unknown origin, to the public announcement of such by the Wuhan CDC, is 4 days.

Speaking as a lay person, to me It's quite plausible that even if people were coming down with covid symptoms in mid November, it wouldn't be cause to suspect the existence of a new virus until cases started to rapidly multiply in mid December. By your own listing of timelines, people were coming down with covid symptoms in Los Angeles and Italy in December, but no authorities in those areas uncovered the fact that this was a new virus. They just treated the cases without ever determining the underlying cause. I suspect this is normal medical procedure until big clusters are spotted, as happened in Wuhan, and only then would more intensive testing be done to find the cause.

I may not know all the facts, but this is what I see is the most accepted timeline from doing a quick internet search. There are a few conflicting reports- such as the one you listed about the existence of cases in LA or Italy, but there is no hard evidence that this was Covid. Supposedly too, there is a report from Italy about some lung tissue samples taken in September that retroactively have been found to have contained Covid. But no conclusions from this have been made that China was aware of any kind of outbreak at this time, or was actively covering it up.

So all in all, I'm not sure where the big problem with China is.

[coldfish]

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-virus-italy-december.html

There is a case where sewers in Italy were testing positive for covid in December. They, like the LA study, had a statistically significant increase in pneumonia cases before the new year. I can point to countless data points like this. One you can dismiss but when you look at the totality of them, its pretty obvious that this was spreading far and wide around the world in 2019.

You have kept up on covid and are fully aware of just how bad it is. Now, apply your knowledge here. Would it be possible for a city to have completely unchecked community spread for months without noticing it? If the answer is no (which it obviously is), the Chinese were lying and covering up. Unless we do something, they are going to do it again. There was only 18 years between SARS-1 and covid19. We will be due for our next global meltdown in 2038 unless we take extraordinary steps here.

If we had a different leader and did everything right, we would be Germany . . . who has spent most of 2020 in lockdown and lost 14k lives (and they are 1/4th our size). I really don't ever want to have this happen again and accomplishing that is going to require us shutting it down at the source.

As far as I can discern, the generally accepted timeline for the outbreak is something like this: the first case is considered to be a 55 year old man in Hubei province in mid November. There were 9 others who were thought to be infected in November as well. The next event that comes on the radar is a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan in mid December, with an unknown cause. Lung fluid was sent to be tested at an outside lab to determine the cause, and the results came back on Dec. 27th, showing the existence on an unknown coronavirus. A public statement was issued by the Wuhan CDC on Dec. 31st of a virus of unknown origin.

So the time between when doctors started noticing clusters of pneumonia of unknown origin, to the public announcement of such by the Wuhan CDC, is 4 days.

Speaking as a lay person, to me It's quite plausible that even if people were coming down with covid symptoms in mid November, it wouldn't be cause to suspect the existence of a new virus until cases started to rapidly multiply in mid December. By your own listing of timelines, people were coming down with covid symptoms in Los Angeles and Italy in December, but no authorities in those areas uncovered the fact that this was a new virus. They just treated the cases without ever determining the underlying cause. I suspect this is normal medical procedure until big clusters are spotted, as happened in Wuhan, and only then would more intensive testing be done to find the cause.

I may not know all the facts, but this is what I see is the most accepted timeline from doing a quick internet search. There are a few conflicting reports- such as the one you listed about the existence of cases in LA or Italy, but there is no hard evidence that this was Covid. Supposedly too, there is a report from Italy about some lung tissue samples taken in September that retroactively have been found to have contained Covid. But no conclusions from this have been made that China was aware of any kind of outbreak at this time, or was actively covering it up.

So all in all, I'm not sure where the big problem with China is.

Well, this is going nowhere but you are seriously OK with this?

He sent warnings of a deadly virus on social media. The Chinese government moved to downplay the emergency, but Dr. Li Wenliang’s insistence on telling the truth turned him into a folk hero in a country that prizes secrecy and crushes dissent.

Li and seven other whistleblowers were arrested for spreading rumors. Only last week, as the coronavirus outbreak kept 50 million Chinese people on lockdown and accelerated around the world, did authorities concede that Li and the others should not have been censured.

It’s not so important to me if I’m vindicated or not,” Li, 34, said in an interview from a quarantine room with Chinese publication Caixin. “What’s more important is that everyone knows the truth.”

Li’s vindication seemed even more meaningless after news that he died early Friday in a hospital in Wuhan, the center of an epidemic he warned about in December.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-06/coronavirus-china-xi-li-wenliang

China was arresting people who were warning of covid. These were just the 7 that got out the word and got arrested. We have no idea how far back the information suppression went but the fact that there was state sponsored suppression of information isn't questioned by anyone.

[Dresden]

The US has done plenty of covering their ass too when it comes to public health hazards that they were responsible for. You can look at the coverup of the nuclear testing they conducted in the South Pacific islands, the Union Carbide disaster in India, the depleted uranium hazard in Iraq, Agent Orange in SE Asia, and most significantly, the effect of American tobacco marketing in pushing tobacco use around the globe.

This is pure whataboutism. We are talking about trying to prevent another global pandemic that kills millions of people.

I don't think that pointing out to cases where the US has tried to cover things up in the past can be blithely dismissed as "whataboutism" at all. It's important to be consistent in international relations. So far, Covid has killed about 1.3 million. The US invasion if Iraq was responsible for between 1 million and 2.4 million deaths. If we say about covid "the world needs to take steps to make sure this never happens again", shouldn't we have been shouting for the same thing after the Iraq tragedy?

[coldfish]

The US has done plenty of covering their ass too when it comes to public health hazards that they were responsible for. You can look at the coverup of the nuclear testing they conducted in the South Pacific islands, the Union Carbide disaster in India, the depleted uranium hazard in Iraq, Agent Orange in SE Asia, and most significantly, the effect of American tobacco marketing in pushing tobacco use around the globe.

This is pure whataboutism. We are talking about trying to prevent another global pandemic that kills millions of people.

I don't think that pointing out to cases where the US has tried to cover things up in the past can be blithely dismissed as "whataboutism" at all. It's important to be consistent in international relations. So far, Covid has killed about 1.3 million. The US invasion if Iraq was responsible for between 1 million and 2.4 million deaths. If we say about covid "the world needs to take steps to make sure this never happens again", shouldn't we have been shouting for the same thing after the Iraq tragedy?

If you would like to start a topic on that, go ahead. IMHO, the Iraq was was an unmitigated tragedy. Doing something about it won't do anything about covid or the next pandemic though which was the topic at hand.

Pure whataboutism by definition.

a conversational tactic in which a person responds to an argument or attack by changing the subject to focus on someone else’s misconduct, implying that all criticism is invalid because no one is completely blameless:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/whataboutism

[Chicago-Bull-E]

The US has done plenty of covering their ass too when it comes to public health hazards that they were responsible for. You can look at the coverup of the nuclear testing they conducted in the South Pacific islands, the Union Carbide disaster in India, the depleted uranium hazard in Iraq, Agent Orange in SE Asia, and most significantly, the effect of American tobacco marketing in pushing tobacco use around the globe.

This is pure whataboutism. We are talking about trying to prevent another global pandemic that kills millions of people.

I don't think that pointing out to cases where the US has tried to cover things up in the past can be blithely dismissed as "whataboutism" at all. It's important to be consistent in international relations. So far, Covid has killed about 1.3 million. The US invasion if Iraq was responsible for between 1 million and 2.4 million deaths. If we say about covid "the world needs to take steps to make sure this never happens again", shouldn't we have been shouting for the same thing after the Iraq tragedy?

That's exactly what it is. The old tired argument of "these wrongdoing's in the past prevent real discussion about the wrongdoings of the present" is such an awful argument that gets used SO many times across so many different topics, its almost exhausting.

[Shill]

1) how could china have possibly hoped to keep the origin of the virus under wraps? assuming that they knew this was impossible, why even attempt to cover it up? how does that benefit them? it's not like this couldn't have happened in any disgusting wet market across the globe (of which there are many right here in the USA)

2) when did news reports of a novel coronavirus begin to proliferate? before china reported it to the WHO? if not, then do we really have any evidence that they were covering it up for nefarious purposes? chinese authorities confirmed on dec. 31 that dozens in wuhan were being treated for "pneumonia from an unknown source" tied to a wet market. was there any public reporting anywhere in the world prior to that date?

The cover ups I have read about were:
1. Local doctors in Wuhan were noting that there was a lot of unexplainable pneumonia cases. One went public with it and was arrested. He wasn't the only one bringing it up and the local authorities were trying to cover it up.
2. Once it did go public, national Chinese authorities were not cooperative with international representatives and gave them a false picture. That's where the "no evidence of human to human transmission" tweet from January comes from. Transparency and honesty would have given them a much clearer picture and likely triggered earlier action globally.

There was a post on the Bulls board from March where a person from Chicago was in Italy and did a blog. He and his girlfriend got deathly sick with a covid like illness in January. The local doctor told them "yeah, some weird illness is going around". IMO, if the world community knew how long covid existed, they would have been putting 2 and 2 together. Based on the models I have read, shutting down just a week or two earlier would have saved a ridiculous number of lives.

In general, we are going to need a global system where any statistical evidence of abnormal illness triggers investigation and sequencing of the infectious material really quickly. If we find a new virus, we need to shut down global transportation as much as possible, IMO.

The AP also reported that the China waited six days in January to alert the public of the severity of COVID:

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.

https://apnews.com/article/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9


The CCP is notorious for this kind of thing, e.g. trying to cover up a deadly train derailment in 2011.

At this point, there's not much to be done beyond ensuring that vital supply chains don't rely on China.

They're going to do what they want. IIRC they've already reopened the wet market in question.

[Dresden]

[quote="coldfish"]

Well, this is going nowhere but you are seriously OK with this?

[quote]

Yes, I'm ok with China discovering the existence of a new coronavirus, and the making a public announcement about it 4 days later. That seems like a perfectly adequate time line.

[Dresden]

He sent warnings of a deadly virus on social media. The Chinese government moved to downplay the emergency, but Dr. Li Wenliang’s insistence on telling the truth turned him into a folk hero in a country that prizes secrecy and crushes dissent.

Li and seven other whistleblowers were arrested for spreading rumors. Only last week, as the coronavirus outbreak kept 50 million Chinese people on lockdown and accelerated around the world, did authorities concede that Li and the others should not have been censured.

It’s not so important to me if I’m vindicated or not,” Li, 34, said in an interview from a quarantine room with Chinese publication Caixin. “What’s more important is that everyone knows the truth.”

Li’s vindication seemed even more meaningless after news that he died early Friday in a hospital in Wuhan, the center of an epidemic he warned about in December.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-06/coronavirus-china-xi-li-wenliang

China was arresting people who were warning of covid. These were just the 7 that got out the word and got arrested. We have no idea how far back the information suppression went but the fact that there was state sponsored suppression of information isn't questioned by anyone.

Of course it's wrong for China to be arresting people for trying to spread information about the new virus. It is important to note, however, that the Wuhan CDC had already made the announcement of the presence of a previously unknown coronavirus the day before Li started circulating the information to his colleagues.

And I'm sure you'll say this is just "whataboutism" but Trump wanted to arrest Colonel Vindamin for treason for his testimony during the Mueller probe. And he's threatened other whistleblowers in his administration with arrest for doing similar things. So China is not the only country where whistleblowers face threats.

[Dresden]

This is pure whataboutism. We are talking about trying to prevent another global pandemic that kills millions of people.

I don't think that pointing out to cases where the US has tried to cover things up in the past can be blithely dismissed as "whataboutism" at all. It's important to be consistent in international relations. So far, Covid has killed about 1.3 million. The US invasion if Iraq was responsible for between 1 million and 2.4 million deaths. If we say about covid "the world needs to take steps to make sure this never happens again", shouldn't we have been shouting for the same thing after the Iraq tragedy?

If you would like to start a topic on that, go ahead. IMHO, the Iraq was was an unmitigated tragedy. Doing something about it won't do anything about covid or the next pandemic though which was the topic at hand.

Pure whataboutism by definition.

a conversational tactic in which a person responds to an argument or attack by changing the subject to focus on someone else’s misconduct, implying that all criticism is invalid because no one is completely blameless:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/whataboutism

According to your definition, what I directed your attention to was not "whataboutism" because I never implied "all criticism in invalid". My point was that I think there is more outrage at China over Covid a) because they are communist and authoritarian, and b) their actions are killing 250K+ Americans, whereas with Iraq a) most of those who died were Iraqi's, and not Americans, and b) that tragedy was instigated by the our own country.

There is talk about wanting to make China pay reparations for Covid- are those same people who are arguing for that, also in favor of US paying reparations to Iraq?

[Dresden]

The AP also reported that the China waited six days in January to alert the public of the severity of COVID:

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.

https://apnews.com/article/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9


The CCP is notorious for this kind of thing, e.g. trying to cover up a deadly train derailment in 2011.

At this point, there's not much to be done beyond ensuring that vital supply chains don't rely on China.

They're going to do what they want. IIRC they've already reopened the wet market in question.

Again, China does deserve plenty of blame for this delay, which probably caused countless new infections. But the US delayed just as long from taking serious actions, even when we knew of it's presence in places like Washington and California. Remember Trump's declaration that "this week we have 15 cases, soon there will be zero"? If action had been taken immediately (as was done in some places like San Francisco), the spread may have been much better contained. And certainly we should have started gearing up production of PPE at that point, doing a lot more to prepare the public for a possible outbreak.

Again, that's not to let China off the hook, but saying "the CCP is notorious for this kind of thing" (which they are, absolutely), overlooks the fact that our own govt. was just as guilty it trying to cover up the severity of the pandemic- and if fact still is.

[Chi town]

Two wrong don’t make a right. China covered up and Trump dismissed to protect his precious stock market. Both cost precious time that has cost many lives.

1. What happened to Dr. Li? He’s 34 and died of COVID?

2. Look around at China’s burial process for COVID deaths...

3. Check out how China is treating Muslims in their camps...

I’ve had lots of conversations with Chinese American friends about all of this. Many of them are 1st gen. Fascinating to hear how they and their parents are processing. It is very real the racism they are experiencing due to the virus originating in China as are other Asians that aren’t Chinese.

[Red8911]

The AP also reported that the China waited six days in January to alert the public of the severity of COVID:

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.

https://apnews.com/article/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9


The CCP is notorious for this kind of thing, e.g. trying to cover up a deadly train derailment in 2011.

At this point, there's not much to be done beyond ensuring that vital supply chains don't rely on China.

They're going to do what they want. IIRC they've already reopened the wet market in question.

Again, China does deserve plenty of blame for this delay, which probably caused countless new infections. But the US delayed just as long from taking serious actions, even when we knew of it's presence in places like Washington and California. Remember Trump's declaration that "this week we have 15 cases, soon there will be zero"? If action had been taken immediately (as was done in some places like San Francisco), the spread may have been much better contained. And certainly we should have started gearing up production of PPE at that point, doing a lot more to prepare the public for a possible outbreak.

Again, that's not to let China off the hook, but saying "the CCP is notorious for this kind of thing" (which they are, absolutely), overlooks the fact that our own govt. was just as guilty it trying to cover up the severity of the pandemic- and if fact still is.

You would shut down a whole country and economy over 15 cases? No one would ever do that and no other country shut down until the numbers rose. It’s easy to say that now but knowing what we knew then it would be crazy to do that.

[moorhosj]

You would shut down a whole country and economy over 15 cases?

This seems like a strawman, did someone propose this? I think we can all agree there is a wide gap between doing almost nothing and completely shutting down the country. It’s where we’ve been for 8 months.

[Shill]

The AP also reported that the China waited six days in January to alert the public of the severity of COVID:

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.

https://apnews.com/article/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9


The CCP is notorious for this kind of thing, e.g. trying to cover up a deadly train derailment in 2011.

At this point, there's not much to be done beyond ensuring that vital supply chains don't rely on China.

They're going to do what they want. IIRC they've already reopened the wet market in question.

Again, China does deserve plenty of blame for this delay, which probably caused countless new infections. But the US delayed just as long from taking serious actions, even when we knew of it's presence in places like Washington and California. Remember Trump's declaration that "this week we have 15 cases, soon there will be zero"? If action had been taken immediately (as was done in some places like San Francisco), the spread may have been much better contained. And certainly we should have started gearing up production of PPE at that point, doing a lot more to prepare the public for a possible outbreak.

Again, that's not to let China off the hook, but saying "the CCP is notorious for this kind of thing" (which they are, absolutely), overlooks the fact that our own govt. was just as guilty it trying to cover up the severity of the pandemic- and if fact still is.

I feel like there's a parallel conversation taking place.

There's been plenty of analysis of America's response to the virus, and a disproportionately small amount of analysis on China's role.

Even if the U.S. had handled things impeccably and there were zero deaths in the country, that still means there were over 1.1 million deaths worldwide.

The virus originated in China, so it makes sense to scrutinize how and why this happened, and how it can be mitigated in the future.

For example, Dr. Fauci was on television as late as February saying the virus wasn't that big of a deal because he was basing his analysis on information coming out of the World Health Organization, which—let's be honest—is beholden to Beijing.

So what did China know, and when did they know it?

These are fair questions to ask without immediately pivoting to how the U.S. (or any other country) might've botched the response.

[ImSlower]

Minor update on my end: I have been asymptomatic long enough that I can be released into the wild again. Whoof. Bouncing off my apartment walls the last few days. I got a phone call today from a county Covid response member asking about my symptoms. Luckily for me, none ever coalesced, so it was a pleasant call - she basically agreed that I am safe to be out, and we did a minor contact tracing. I've been fully isolated, so no worries there.

I am a bit concerned at how long the call took, though. My positive test was 12 days ago (exposure was 17 days back), I received my results via email after 4 days, and only now did I get a phone call asking of symptoms and whom I'd been in contact with. If I'd been skeptical of the disease as so many are, I could easily have spread it around happily. I suppose it's a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg issue. My town and county continue to spike as badly as any region in the state, so her department is likely overwhelmed trying to catch up. Her phone call was far too late had I been uneducated on my proper response, but I told her I truly appreciate her and her coworkers efforts.

I still have the oddest lack of smell. Spicy odors are back on my palate, but soap, fruits, dairy, and (TMI, not sorry) farts are still nonexistent. My taste buds are back, although I feel like they are at 80%, as if I were trying to hear headphones with a hoodie between them and my ears. I have a friend whose 30ish, ultra-fit husband just spent three days in the hospital with a terrible fever, but it's passed enough that he is back home but still suffering. I'm blessed having ducked both my own symptoms, and risk of spreading to others, but I can only feel sadness right now on how many others it's affecting. Not simply those who contract it, but my majority of friends in the service or performance industry are all at their wits' end, and many have gone bankrupt by now. Apologies for being a dirty socialist, but I sure wish this government had massive assistance programs for those whose careers or small businesses are completely gutted. Alas. Such is 2020.

[Dresden]

Two wrong don’t make a right. China covered up and Trump dismissed to protect his precious stock market. Both cost precious time that has cost many lives.

1. What happened to Dr. Li? He’s 34 and died of COVID?

2. Look around at China’s burial process for COVID deaths...

3. Check out how China is treating Muslims in their camps...

I’ve had lots of conversations with Chinese American friends about all of this. Many of them are 1st gen. Fascinating to hear how they and their parents are processing. It is very real the racism they are experiencing due to the virus originating in China as are other Asians that aren’t Chinese.

I am aware of Dr. Li's death. But the fact is, Dr. Li was never arrested. He was interrogated and admonished for making what authorities called "making false statements", because Li had thought that SARS was active again, and notified some of his colleagues of this. He was not imprisoned though, and a later inquiry cleared him of any wrong doing.

On point 2, I'll have to look this one up. I remember reports about mass graves or something to that effect. Not sure what the latest thinking is on that one though. A lot of rumors get circulated, some end up being true, some not.

On treatment of the Uighurs, absolutely China has been guilty of mass human rights violations. I'm not denying that the Chinese govt isn't terrible when it comes to human rights violations. I'm just saying that I'm not convinced there is evidence of a massive coverup when it comes to Covid- one that lasted months before it was made public at the end of December.

[Dresden]

The AP also reported that the China waited six days in January to alert the public of the severity of COVID:



https://apnews.com/article/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9


The CCP is notorious for this kind of thing, e.g. trying to cover up a deadly train derailment in 2011.

At this point, there's not much to be done beyond ensuring that vital supply chains don't rely on China.

They're going to do what they want. IIRC they've already reopened the wet market in question.

Again, China does deserve plenty of blame for this delay, which probably caused countless new infections. But the US delayed just as long from taking serious actions, even when we knew of it's presence in places like Washington and California. Remember Trump's declaration that "this week we have 15 cases, soon there will be zero"? If action had been taken immediately (as was done in some places like San Francisco), the spread may have been much better contained. And certainly we should have started gearing up production of PPE at that point, doing a lot more to prepare the public for a possible outbreak.

Again, that's not to let China off the hook, but saying "the CCP is notorious for this kind of thing" (which they are, absolutely), overlooks the fact that our own govt. was just as guilty it trying to cover up the severity of the pandemic- and if fact still is.

You would shut down a whole country and economy over 15 cases? No one would ever do that and no other country shut down until the numbers rose. It’s easy to say that now but knowing what we knew then it would be crazy to do that.

I never said the country should have been shut down. That's the problem with how people view the pandemic response- they see two extremes- 1). shut down the whole economy, prohibit travel, and impose strict curfews, or 2) wait, do nothing, and see what happens.

I don't think you can argue that the US wasn't very late in how it responded to the pandemic, and that faster action would have saved numerous lives. San Francisco is an example of how a faster response would have gone. Our mayor was alerted by the public health chief about the outbreak in China, and the fact that given SF's large Chinese population, it would soon be coming here. In response, the mayor did impose the first shut down in the nation, when cases started showing up in SF and nearby counties. A lot of people complained, but in retrospect it was absolutely the right thing to do. We shut down for 4 weeks, and since then our cases have been very manageable, and we never got overwhelmed like NYC or other places have.

[Dresden]

The AP also reported that the China waited six days in January to alert the public of the severity of COVID:



https://apnews.com/article/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9


The CCP is notorious for this kind of thing, e.g. trying to cover up a deadly train derailment in 2011.

At this point, there's not much to be done beyond ensuring that vital supply chains don't rely on China.

They're going to do what they want. IIRC they've already reopened the wet market in question.

Again, China does deserve plenty of blame for this delay, which probably caused countless new infections. But the US delayed just as long from taking serious actions, even when we knew of it's presence in places like Washington and California. Remember Trump's declaration that "this week we have 15 cases, soon there will be zero"? If action had been taken immediately (as was done in some places like San Francisco), the spread may have been much better contained. And certainly we should have started gearing up production of PPE at that point, doing a lot more to prepare the public for a possible outbreak.

Again, that's not to let China off the hook, but saying "the CCP is notorious for this kind of thing" (which they are, absolutely), overlooks the fact that our own govt. was just as guilty it trying to cover up the severity of the pandemic- and if fact still is.

I feel like there's a parallel conversation taking place.

There's been plenty of analysis of America's response to the virus, and a disproportionately small amount of analysis on China's role.

Even if the U.S. had handled things impeccably and there were zero deaths in the country, that still means there were over 1.1 million deaths worldwide.

The virus originated in China, so it makes sense to scrutinize how and why this happened, and how it can be mitigated in the future.

For example, Dr. Fauci was on television as late as February saying the virus wasn't that big of a deal because he was basing his analysis on information coming out of the World Health Organization, which—let's be honest—is beholden to Beijing.

So what did China know, and when did they know it?

These are fair questions to ask without immediately pivoting to how the U.S. (or any other country) might've botched the response.

I agree those are fair questions to ask, and should be asked. But I see a lot of people supposing a large scale coverup on China's part, going back as far as August of 2019. I don't think there's any good proof of that.

As far as I can see, China first became aware of pneumonia clusters in late December, did some additional testing, found out there was a new corona virus circulating, and made this public a few days later.

The WHO was notified on Dec. 31st, and launched an investigation a few days later. Whether China interfered or stonewalled this investigation, I don't know. Perhaps they did.

I don't know how valid this point is either that the WHO is "beholden" to China. I don't know what evidence exists to make that conclusion.

In the future, the US needs to re-staff it's field offices in China that worked on issues like sudden infectious disease outbreaks, which were drastically cut by the Trump administration:

"The Trump administration cut staff by more than two-thirds at a key U.S. public health agency operating inside China, as part of a larger rollback of U.S.-funded health and science experts on the ground there leading up to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters has learned.
...

The CDC’s China headcount has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the documents show. The four people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the losses included epidemiologists and other health professionals.

...

“The CDC office in Beijing is a shell of its former self,” said one of the people, a U.S. official who worked in China at the time of the drawdown.

Separately, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the global relief program which had a role in helping China monitor and respond to outbreaks, also shut their Beijing offices on Trump’s watch. Before the closures, each office was staffed by a U.S. official. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) transferred out of China in 2018 the manager of an animal disease monitoring program.

Reductions at the U.S. agencies sidelined health experts, scientists and other professionals who might have been able to help China mount an earlier response to the novel coronavirus, as well as provide the U.S. government with more information about what was coming, according to the people who spoke with Reuters. The Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and for keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to assist."

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/26/trump-administration-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak/


So there you have it- we actually had a robust presence in China prior to Trump- epidemiologists and animal disease experts that were there for precisely these reasons. We need to work with China to rebuild those ties (as well as with other nations), and invest more in our CDC branches around the world to help monitor and assist with future outbreaks. Of course, we should also be re-joining the WHO and be part of their effort to be more vigilant on these sorts of things in the future.

[Chi town]

Two wrong don’t make a right. China covered up and Trump dismissed to protect his precious stock market. Both cost precious time that has cost many lives.

1. What happened to Dr. Li? He’s 34 and died of COVID?

2. Look around at China’s burial process for COVID deaths...

3. Check out how China is treating Muslims in their camps...

I’ve had lots of conversations with Chinese American friends about all of this. Many of them are 1st gen. Fascinating to hear how they and their parents are processing. It is very real the racism they are experiencing due to the virus originating in China as are other Asians that aren’t Chinese.

I am aware of Dr. Li's death. But the fact is, Dr. Li was never arrested. He was interrogated and admonished for making what authorities called "making false statements", because Li had thought that SARS was active again, and notified some of his colleagues of this. He was not imprisoned though, and a later inquiry cleared him of any wrong doing.

On point 2, I'll have to look this one up. I remember reports about mass graves or something to that effect. Not sure what the latest thinking is on that one though. A lot of rumors get circulated, some end up being true, some not.

On treatment of the Uighurs, absolutely China has been guilty of mass human rights violations. I'm not denying that the Chinese govt isn't terrible when it comes to human rights violations. I'm just saying that I'm not convinced there is evidence of a massive coverup when it comes to Covid- one that lasted months before it was made public at the end of December.

How did Dr. Li die? He was 34.