OT: COVID-19 thread #4

[dice]

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.

to be fair, trump is an outlier

[Dresden]

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.

We should be doing more to help small businesses that have been wiped out by this. The PPP program was great if you were only affected by the lockdown, because it allowed you to pay your employees for the time they missed, as well as your rent. But for businesses who couldn't just return to normal after the 8 or 10 weeks that the PPP covered, I don't think there was anything for them. And there should be.

[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.

How did Dr. Li die? He was 34.

He caught Covid from one of his patients at work.

[Dresden]

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.

to be fair, trump is an outlier

Is he? What about Snowden, or that dude (now a woman) in the army who leaked a lot of secrets about wrong doing? How about Karen Silkwood, or the person who blew the lid on the tobacco industry? I think you can find many examples, both famous and unknown, where whisteblowers in this country have been persecuted, murdered, or threatened by either the govt. or big corporations.

[dice]

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.

to be fair, trump is an outlier

Is he? What about Snowden, or that dude (now a woman) in the army who leaked a lot of secrets about wrong doing? How about Karen Silkwood, or the person who blew the lid on the tobacco industry? I think you can find many examples, both famous and unknown, where whisteblowers in this country have been persecuted, murdered, or threatened by either the govt. or big corporations.

in terms of quantity and naked self-interest, of course trump is an outlier

don't know anything about silkwood, but snowden and manning leaked a ****load of stuff, only some of which was clear-cut government wrongdoing. we can't have people injudiciously leaking top secret government information and just not prosecute them because some of it was in the public interest. if you're going to blatantly break very justifiable laws, you have to be prepared to pay the price, no matter how noble your intentions. it is to some extent your willingness to pay that price which signals the nobility of your intent

[Chi town]

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.

to be fair, trump is an outlier

Is he? What about Snowden, or that dude (now a woman) in the army who leaked a lot of secrets about wrong doing? How about Karen Silkwood, or the person who blew the lid on the tobacco industry? I think you can find many examples, both famous and unknown, where whisteblowers in this country have been persecuted, murdered, or threatened by either the govt. or big corporations.

Yep. This is what Americans are so blind too as well. We have done some very shady stuff and way more than has never been brought to light.

[Chi town]

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.

He caught Covid from one of his patients at work.

And you believe that was his real cause of death?

For that to be true it would be an incredible outlier based on all the data that we have. It would basically defy all data.

Innocent till proven guilty. Never a trial with China but lots of evidence and even more suppressed or destroyed.

[Dresden]

How did Dr. Li die? He was 34.

He caught Covid from one of his patients at work.

And you believe that was his real cause of death?

For that to be true it would be an incredible outlier based on all the data that we have. It would basically defy all data.

Innocent till proven guilty. Never a trial with China but lots of evidence and even more suppressed or destroyed.

You think he was murdered by the Chinese govt, and then photos leaked of him in a hospital bed hooked up to a respirator? A lot of people his age have died from Covid- it's not an incredible outlier. He caught it from someone who was not known to be infected, and therefore he likely got a pretty high viral load if he was one of his patients. A lot of young doctors, nurses, hospital staff have died, esp. in the early days of the pandemic when precautions were inadequate and treatments not as refined.

[Dresden]

to be fair, trump is an outlier

Is he? What about Snowden, or that dude (now a woman) in the army who leaked a lot of secrets about wrong doing? How about Karen Silkwood, or the person who blew the lid on the tobacco industry? I think you can find many examples, both famous and unknown, where whisteblowers in this country have been persecuted, murdered, or threatened by either the govt. or big corporations.

in terms of quantity and naked self-interest, of course trump is an outlier

don't know anything about silkwood, but snowden and manning leaked a ****load of stuff, only some of which was clear-cut government wrongdoing. we can't have people injudiciously leaking top secret government information and just not prosecute them because some of it was in the public interest. if you're going to blatantly break very justifiable laws, you have to be prepared to pay the price, no matter how noble your intentions. it is to some extent your willingness to pay that price which signals the nobility of your intent

I meant Trump may not be such an outlier in terms of going after whistleblowers. Our govt. has always done that.

About Silkwood- she worked at a nuclear power plant and started talking about lax safety standards in the industry, and was run off the road one night in mysterious circumstances and died. Good movie about her with Merrill Streep.

[Chi town]

He caught Covid from one of his patients at work.

And you believe that was his real cause of death?

For that to be true it would be an incredible outlier based on all the data that we have. It would basically defy all data.

Innocent till proven guilty. Never a trial with China but lots of evidence and even more suppressed or destroyed.

You think he was murdered by the Chinese govt, and then photos leaked of him in a hospital bed hooked up to a respirator? A lot of people his age have died from Covid- it's not an incredible outlier. He caught it from someone who was not known to be infected, and therefore he likely got a pretty high viral load if he was one of his patients. A lot of young doctors, nurses, hospital staff have died, esp. in the early days of the pandemic when precautions were inadequate and treatments not as refined.

Want to be sensitive to those who have passed and their families... “A lot” in that age group is intellectually dishonest compared to the other age groups. We both agree that one death is painful and one too many.

I have no evidence to suggest the Chinese govt murdered Dr. Li. I’m also going to question this as cause of death due to its convenience, the history of the Chinese govt with those that have spoken out, and the timeline. Interviews with family and fo workers with complete anonymity (impossible in China) would give us a fuller story.

To not question this has me asking all kinds of questions. Still amazed how the media doesn’t even tough this. Why not? It doesn’t sell? Not enough clicks? It’s fear but not personal enough to influence people here due to it happening in China.

[dice]

Is he? What about Snowden, or that dude (now a woman) in the army who leaked a lot of secrets about wrong doing? How about Karen Silkwood, or the person who blew the lid on the tobacco industry? I think you can find many examples, both famous and unknown, where whisteblowers in this country have been persecuted, murdered, or threatened by either the govt. or big corporations.

in terms of quantity and naked self-interest, of course trump is an outlier

don't know anything about silkwood, but snowden and manning leaked a ****load of stuff, only some of which was clear-cut government wrongdoing. we can't have people injudiciously leaking top secret government information and just not prosecute them because some of it was in the public interest. if you're going to blatantly break very justifiable laws, you have to be prepared to pay the price, no matter how noble your intentions. it is to some extent your willingness to pay that price which signals the nobility of your intent

I meant Trump may not be such an outlier in terms of going after whistleblowers. Our govt. has always done that.

the difference is that the whistleblowers trump went after were calling out narrow and indisputably improper activities that were not standard practice and often spearheaded by trump himself

[Dresden]

"One America News Network is getting a time out on YouTube after violating the platform's policy against COVID-19 misinformation.

The pro-Trump news network has been suspended from posting new videos for a week because it broke YouTube's rules with a video promoting a "phony cure for COVID-19," Axios reports. The video in question was taken down. YouTube doesn't allow videos that claim "there's a guaranteed cure" for the coronavirus."

[Dresden]

in terms of quantity and naked self-interest, of course trump is an outlier

don't know anything about silkwood, but snowden and manning leaked a ****load of stuff, only some of which was clear-cut government wrongdoing. we can't have people injudiciously leaking top secret government information and just not prosecute them because some of it was in the public interest. if you're going to blatantly break very justifiable laws, you have to be prepared to pay the price, no matter how noble your intentions. it is to some extent your willingness to pay that price which signals the nobility of your intent

I meant Trump may not be such an outlier in terms of going after whistleblowers. Our govt. has always done that.

the difference is that the whistleblowers trump went after were calling out narrow and indisputably improper activities that were not standard practice and often spearheaded by trump himself

Back in the day, Daniel Ellsberg was charged with espionage for releasing the Pentagon Papers, which revealed that the pentagon's own assessment of US prospects in Vietnam were much more pessimistic than what they were telling the public- essentially proving that America was being lied to by it's military and civilian leaders.

[Dresden]

The account of Dr. Li's death on Wikipedia:

Coronavirus infection

On 8 January, Li contracted the coronavirus unwittingly while treating an infected patient at his hospital.[29] The patient suffered from acute angle-closure glaucoma and developed a fever the next day that Li then suspected was coronavirus-related.[24] Li developed a fever and cough two days later which soon became severe.[29] Doctor Yu Chengbo, a Zhejiang medical expert sent to Wuhan, told media that the glaucoma patient whom Li saw on 8 January was a storekeeper at Huanan Seafood Market with a high viral load, which could have exacerbated Li's infection.[30]

On 12 January, Li was admitted to intensive care at Houhu Hospital District, Wuhan Central Hospital,[31] where he was quarantined and treated.[29] He tested positive for the virus on 30 January and formally diagnosed with the virus infection on 1 February.[24] While hospitalized, Li posted a message online vowing to return to the front lines after his recovery.[32]

Death

On 6 February, while Li was on the phone with a friend, he told the friend that his oxygen saturation had dropped to 85%.[31] Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) was reportedly used to keep him alive.[33] According to China Newsweek, his heartbeat stopped at 21:30.[33] In social media posts, the Chinese state media reported that Li had died,[34] but the posts were soon deleted.[35] Later, Wuhan Central Hospital released a statement contradicting reports of his death: "In the process of fighting the coronavirus, the eye doctor from our hospital Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected. He is now in critical condition and we are doing our best to rescue him."[36] The hospital formally announced that Li had died at 2:58 a.m. on 7 February 2020.[8][37] During the confusion, more than 17 million people were watching the live stream for his status updates.[32]

[Dresden]

The fact that it was announced that he was taken to a hospital (where there would be staff who could corroborate that he was there or not), and that he was phoning friends about his condition, seems to make it very unlikely that his death was somehow orchestrated by the authorities. Usually when countries do something like that, the person just disappears, as often happens in Russia to dissidents. Or they wind up dead somewhere from poisoning.

[jnrjr79]

How did Dr. Li die? He was 34.

He caught Covid from one of his patients at work.

And you believe that was his real cause of death?

For that to be true it would be an incredible outlier based on all the data that we have. It would basically defy all data.

Innocent till proven guilty. Never a trial with China but lots of evidence and even more suppressed or destroyed.

I am about as big of a China skeptic as anyone, but it's weird to act as though being in your 30s somehow means you can't die from COVID. Three people in Chicago in their 30s were among yesterday's dead.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

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.

You realize that the article you’re citing points out precisely what you’re arguing against, right? No, probably not. I’ll help out here. It apparently took Milan &Turin two months to realize they had a new virus problem. Note that the WHO issued its initial ‘new virus’ alert on Jan 5th, so they shouldn’t have been unaware something new was on the loose. China didn’t have that luxury. The virus was new and unknown to them, a bad combination...

This China-bashing stuff borders on QANONland. It’s a novel virus that jumped species. Those always take time to decipher/detect...

Awesome!!! Those doubting the existence of a China defense squad get to see it in action.

OK, let's quickly pull apart your points. You are conceding that the Italian study is actually evidence that covid was there months beforehand. Now, logically, that rules out the fact that covid just appeared in China in December. Of course, we now know that it takes months for covid to build up to the point where it is filling up hospitals so that wasn't really in question. At least, it shouldn't have been.

But, let's go with your train of thought. So, covid was in Wuhan for months before it spiked. Your point is that its hard to notice that at first. Fair enough. However, once people go back and look at things in hindsight, the pattern becomes really obvious. That's something we have seen throughout the world.

If, once China and associated authorities realized that it was there, they would have been able to go back and see a typical viral spread pattern with a slow buildup up and then an explosion. Basic epidemiology. Once they saw that, if they had relayed that to the world, then medical authorities around the globe would have been thinking "OMG, its existed for a while. It might be here already." They would have been investigating and finding cases locally instead of telling their own doctors to ignore the cases they were seeing. End result would have been earlier shutdowns and countless (hundreds of thousands) of lives saved.

Instead, we got "no evidence of human to human transmission" and "it just showed up in December". That lulled the world to sleep during a critical time.

These were lies and cover ups.

I love how discussing this is QANON type stuff. Gotta discredit, right? Let's turn that around. The idea that the first cases in Wuhan were in December and then a few weeks later they had to build hospitals to house the sick and shut down the entire province is a complete fantasy. The world doesn't work like that. Its a fairy tale being told by an autocratic government to cover its own tracks.

this is your brain on nationalism: the guy is basically just reiterating what was written in the link that YOU posted, now he's a CCP shill for it because that's what you are if you say anything about china that isn't hyper-critical and borderline conspiratorial. it only works that way with china and not every other country in the world that does questionable **** (all of them) because china is the only country that is actually challenging american hegemony across the world. in 20 years, i bet americans will be saying the same stuff about india

[jnrjr79]

You realize that the article you’re citing points out precisely what you’re arguing against, right? No, probably not. I’ll help out here. It apparently took Milan &Turin two months to realize they had a new virus problem. Note that the WHO issued its initial ‘new virus’ alert on Jan 5th, so they shouldn’t have been unaware something new was on the loose. China didn’t have that luxury. The virus was new and unknown to them, a bad combination...

This China-bashing stuff borders on QANONland. It’s a novel virus that jumped species. Those always take time to decipher/detect...

Awesome!!! Those doubting the existence of a China defense squad get to see it in action.

OK, let's quickly pull apart your points. You are conceding that the Italian study is actually evidence that covid was there months beforehand. Now, logically, that rules out the fact that covid just appeared in China in December. Of course, we now know that it takes months for covid to build up to the point where it is filling up hospitals so that wasn't really in question. At least, it shouldn't have been.

But, let's go with your train of thought. So, covid was in Wuhan for months before it spiked. Your point is that its hard to notice that at first. Fair enough. However, once people go back and look at things in hindsight, the pattern becomes really obvious. That's something we have seen throughout the world.

If, once China and associated authorities realized that it was there, they would have been able to go back and see a typical viral spread pattern with a slow buildup up and then an explosion. Basic epidemiology. Once they saw that, if they had relayed that to the world, then medical authorities around the globe would have been thinking "OMG, its existed for a while. It might be here already." They would have been investigating and finding cases locally instead of telling their own doctors to ignore the cases they were seeing. End result would have been earlier shutdowns and countless (hundreds of thousands) of lives saved.

Instead, we got "no evidence of human to human transmission" and "it just showed up in December". That lulled the world to sleep during a critical time.

These were lies and cover ups.

I love how discussing this is QANON type stuff. Gotta discredit, right? Let's turn that around. The idea that the first cases in Wuhan were in December and then a few weeks later they had to build hospitals to house the sick and shut down the entire province is a complete fantasy. The world doesn't work like that. Its a fairy tale being told by an autocratic government to cover its own tracks.

this is your brain on nationalism: the guy is basically just reiterating what was written in the link that YOU posted, now he's a CCP shill for it because that's what you are if you say anything about china that isn't hyper-critical and borderline conspiratorial. it only works that way with china and not every other country in the world that does questionable **** (all of them) because china is the only country that is actually challenging american hegemony across the world. in 20 years, i bet americans will be saying the same stuff about india

Yeah, no. Running giant concentration camps for Muslims is not "questionable" and not "all" countries engage in that sort of thing. I'm pretty sure you could scour all of the Netherlands, for instance, and not run into anything like you'd find in Xinjiang.

[coldfish]

You realize that the article you’re citing points out precisely what you’re arguing against, right? No, probably not. I’ll help out here. It apparently took Milan &Turin two months to realize they had a new virus problem. Note that the WHO issued its initial ‘new virus’ alert on Jan 5th, so they shouldn’t have been unaware something new was on the loose. China didn’t have that luxury. The virus was new and unknown to them, a bad combination...

This China-bashing stuff borders on QANONland. It’s a novel virus that jumped species. Those always take time to decipher/detect...

Awesome!!! Those doubting the existence of a China defense squad get to see it in action.

OK, let's quickly pull apart your points. You are conceding that the Italian study is actually evidence that covid was there months beforehand. Now, logically, that rules out the fact that covid just appeared in China in December. Of course, we now know that it takes months for covid to build up to the point where it is filling up hospitals so that wasn't really in question. At least, it shouldn't have been.

But, let's go with your train of thought. So, covid was in Wuhan for months before it spiked. Your point is that its hard to notice that at first. Fair enough. However, once people go back and look at things in hindsight, the pattern becomes really obvious. That's something we have seen throughout the world.

If, once China and associated authorities realized that it was there, they would have been able to go back and see a typical viral spread pattern with a slow buildup up and then an explosion. Basic epidemiology. Once they saw that, if they had relayed that to the world, then medical authorities around the globe would have been thinking "OMG, its existed for a while. It might be here already." They would have been investigating and finding cases locally instead of telling their own doctors to ignore the cases they were seeing. End result would have been earlier shutdowns and countless (hundreds of thousands) of lives saved.

Instead, we got "no evidence of human to human transmission" and "it just showed up in December". That lulled the world to sleep during a critical time.

These were lies and cover ups.

I love how discussing this is QANON type stuff. Gotta discredit, right? Let's turn that around. The idea that the first cases in Wuhan were in December and then a few weeks later they had to build hospitals to house the sick and shut down the entire province is a complete fantasy. The world doesn't work like that. Its a fairy tale being told by an autocratic government to cover its own tracks.

this is your brain on nationalism: the guy is basically just reiterating what was written in the link that YOU posted, now he's a CCP shill for it because that's what you are if you say anything about china that isn't hyper-critical and borderline conspiratorial. it only works that way with china and not every other country in the world that does questionable **** (all of them) because china is the only country that is actually challenging american hegemony across the world. in 20 years, i bet americans will be saying the same stuff about india

Nope. Stuff like this:

Read on Twitter

wouldn't happen in any but the most authoritarian regimes on the planet. We now have an overwhelming amount of data showing how covid spreads. There is no possible way that someone could come to the conclusion that covid wasn't being spread by people after that long.

I mean, its not borderline conspiratorial. Its a known and proven fact that Chinese authorities were arresting people who spoke up about the outbreak. They WERE suppressing it.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

Awesome!!! Those doubting the existence of a China defense squad get to see it in action.

OK, let's quickly pull apart your points. You are conceding that the Italian study is actually evidence that covid was there months beforehand. Now, logically, that rules out the fact that covid just appeared in China in December. Of course, we now know that it takes months for covid to build up to the point where it is filling up hospitals so that wasn't really in question. At least, it shouldn't have been.

But, let's go with your train of thought. So, covid was in Wuhan for months before it spiked. Your point is that its hard to notice that at first. Fair enough. However, once people go back and look at things in hindsight, the pattern becomes really obvious. That's something we have seen throughout the world.

If, once China and associated authorities realized that it was there, they would have been able to go back and see a typical viral spread pattern with a slow buildup up and then an explosion. Basic epidemiology. Once they saw that, if they had relayed that to the world, then medical authorities around the globe would have been thinking "OMG, its existed for a while. It might be here already." They would have been investigating and finding cases locally instead of telling their own doctors to ignore the cases they were seeing. End result would have been earlier shutdowns and countless (hundreds of thousands) of lives saved.

Instead, we got "no evidence of human to human transmission" and "it just showed up in December". That lulled the world to sleep during a critical time.

These were lies and cover ups.

I love how discussing this is QANON type stuff. Gotta discredit, right? Let's turn that around. The idea that the first cases in Wuhan were in December and then a few weeks later they had to build hospitals to house the sick and shut down the entire province is a complete fantasy. The world doesn't work like that. Its a fairy tale being told by an autocratic government to cover its own tracks.

this is your brain on nationalism: the guy is basically just reiterating what was written in the link that YOU posted, now he's a CCP shill for it because that's what you are if you say anything about china that isn't hyper-critical and borderline conspiratorial. it only works that way with china and not every other country in the world that does questionable **** (all of them) because china is the only country that is actually challenging american hegemony across the world. in 20 years, i bet americans will be saying the same stuff about india

Yeah, no. Running giant concentration camps for Muslims is not "questionable" and not "all" countries engage in that sort of thing. I'm pretty sure you could scour all of the Netherlands, for instance, and not run into anything like you'd find in Xinjiang.

how many million muslims has the USA and its allies killed over the last 20 years? how many of their governments has the west overthrown, or tried to? how come so many muslim-majority countries signed a letter in support of what china is doing? it's not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, but when you use language like 'concentration camp' you are obviously trying to make a comparison to the holocaust, which is borderline anti-semitic. call it what it actually is, ethnic separatism in a country's hinterland, this stuff goes on all over the world. it happened in the americas too, then the colonizers killed most of the natives and put the rest in reservations. actually, this is an interesting facet of history, when the USA was expanding west across the continent, the Russia empire was expanding eastward, and the Qing dynasty was moving into Xinjiang. In the Russian and Chinese contexts, natives were incorporated into the respective empires as subjects with rights and local authority. Americans erased the natives. Now you have these problems in China and Russia because they didn't murder them all 200 years ago like America did. Seems like you're the one OK with genocide, just so long as it happened before you were born.