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I recommend everyone to watch this on-site commentary from the chinese human rights lawyer Chen Qiushi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU https://www.

I recommend everyone to watch this on-site commentary from the chinese human rights lawyer Chen Qiushi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI3R41dGnU Any numbers we've seen so far seem very tame to me, compared to the pictures out of Wuhan.

netsharc 7y ago
TL;DW/DR the subtitles: he saw a lot of chaos in Wuhan's hospitals. Not enough testing kits, not enough government-requisitioned emergency taxis. Taxi drivers were already talking to each other in December saying "avoid the market". If you don't want to read subtitles for 26 minutes here's all the subtitles copy-pasted from the video: https://pastebin.com/6hJ4h4rm https://pastebin.com/6hJ4h4rm (You can hit the "..." above the red subscribe button and select "open transcript", but it shows up in a tiny window). I suppose the WHO saying they're very impressed with how China is handling the situation is because they felt the pressure to save China's face.
- mantap 7y ago
  The way the central government is handling this is impressive, quarantining a city of that size is unprecedented and has bought the world extra time to prepare. Yes the WHO are playing politics when they focus on the good things China is doing and ignore the bad. But personally I think they are closer to the truth than those who present an entirely negative version of events. China's response has been 70% good :)
  - sliken 7y ago
    It would be more impressive if it wasn't a month after the problem started and after 5M people left.
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    > The way the central government is handling this is impressive Not really, they jailed the experts who told them that they needed to act quickly, sat on it for a month, and finally did something about it when it was already out of hand.
    - brigandish 7y ago
      > they jailed the experts who told them that they needed to act quickly If you don't mind me asking, where did you see that info?
      - heavyset_go 7y ago
        I don't have the exact articles on hand right now, but here is a newer article on the suppression: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/world/asia/china-coronavi...
  - netsharc 7y ago
    Huh, I would say you're in the wrong thread to claim it's "impressive", if this guy's video is to be believed, it's a whole lot of chaos and lack of supplies...
    - mantap 7y ago
      We have gone from the first confirmed human-to-human transmission to tens of thousands of cases in something like two weeks. No amount of preparation will prevent chaos and shortages in a situation like this. I watched the CDC press conference today and saw nothing but fear written on their faces. And that is with far more advanced notice than the Chinese had.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  Thank you so much for this transcript. Reading through it made it clear that: 1 - Wuhan's health care system is overwhelmed 2 - There's not enough transportation, test kits, masks, and hospital beds, or volunteers 3 - Many sick people are not even bothering to go to the hospital 4 - There's poor communication and rumors flying around 5 - People are frightened, panicking, and suspecting the worst This tells me that: A - there are likely way more people infected than there are confirmed cases, but possibly more deaths too of those who never made it in to hospitals B - Many wouldn't have died had they had more adequate health care, better transportation and more test kits So, for the rest of us who are sitting on our hands now, glued to social media or the television waiting to see how this will unfold, our time would be much more productively spent planning for when the outbreak hits our local area. Volunteer. Get connected with volunteer organizations. Donate. See what you can do to ensure there's adequate transportation, communication and resources when the outbreak hits your area. One thing I'm really curious about that I haven't heard covered yet is if people who get sick and recover become immune. If so, they should feel safe in volunteering to come in contact with the sick and help them directly after they've recovered themselves. Cooperation, preparation, organization, and mutual aid are crucial.
colinprince 7y ago
I watched the whole thing. It was riveting. Don't forget to turn on CC if you need translation. It is a volunteer transalation. The reporter, Chen Qiushi, describes his observations in Wuhan, a city of more than 10 million. His preamble: "My name has been flagged in China." "If the content contains 'Chenqiushi' or 'CQS', or my face, it will not be sent on Wechat. ... if you [share on wechat], your wechat account will be deleted, like mine."" He describes visits he made to hospitals in Wuhan and the general state in the city. It is well worth listening to / reading. Some points that stuck with me: People cannot get to hospital because there is a critical lack of transportation. There is a critical lack of test kits, so residents do not believe they will be diagnosed, so they stay home. The original (not translated) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXozpbomAns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXozpbomAns (thanks Roritharr)
- Roritharr 7y ago
  I really wonder if I made myself unemployable in China because I posted this. How far does the censoring actually go?
  - mantap 7y ago
    China is an autocratic dictatorship so the rules can and do change at any time, retroactively and arbitrarily. That said you aren't going to be blacklisted for a single comment on HN. That sounds like the kind of thing the US would do.
    - jdkee 7y ago
      No, that sounds like the thing China would do once it has perfected pattern recognition in 2023 or so.
  - iliketosleep 7y ago
    It goes far enough that your concern is valid. Since HN is not exactly mainstream and many Chinese people are posting similar kinds of videos, you're probably okay in this case. However, if you want to make honest comments about China online and still want to travel there, I highly recommend that you post anonymously.
pier25 7y ago
Totally off topic but... Chinese seems like a very efficient language. The guy doesn't seem to be speaking so fast but the subtitles are conveying a lot of information really fast.
- kordlessagain 7y ago
  It's a tonal language, which enables multiple use of a single letter/tone. Evidently English speakers have trouble detecting proper tone..
- abj 7y ago
  Here's [1] a paper on information density vs speed of speech, done by the University of Lyon. I am not sure how accurate their methods are, but they seem to believe that some languages convey more information per syllable and for 5 out of 7 languages, that ones with lower information density are spoken faster. Note that the sample size was only 59 and only compared how fast 20 different texts were read out, all silences that lasted longer than 150 ms were edited out as well. [1] http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/fulltext/pellegrino/Pellegrino_to%20appear_Language.pdf http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/fulltext/pellegrino/Pellegri...
  - pier25 7y ago
    Interesting. In that paper Mandarin has the lowest syllable rate and the highest information density. https://imgur.com/4zwH1Ml https://imgur.com/4zwH1Ml
dredmorbius 7y ago
Subtitles, slightly edited for reading: https://pastebin.com/raw/VrLPVC2H https://pastebin.com/raw/VrLPVC2H

netsharc 7y ago

TL;DW/DR the subtitles: he saw a lot of chaos in Wuhan's hospitals. Not enough testing kits, not enough government-requisitioned emergency taxis. Taxi drivers were already talking to each other in December saying "avoid the market". If you don't want to read subtitles for 26 minutes here's all the subtitles copy-pasted from the video: https://pastebin.com/6hJ4h4rm https://pastebin.com/6hJ4h4rm (You can hit the "..." above the red subscribe button and select "open transcript", but it shows up in a tiny window). I suppose the WHO saying they're very impressed with how China is handling the situation is because they felt the pressure to save China's face.

mantap 7y ago
The way the central government is handling this is impressive, quarantining a city of that size is unprecedented and has bought the world extra time to prepare. Yes the WHO are playing politics when they focus on the good things China is doing and ignore the bad. But personally I think they are closer to the truth than those who present an entirely negative version of events. China's response has been 70% good :)
- sliken 7y ago
  It would be more impressive if it wasn't a month after the problem started and after 5M people left.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  > The way the central government is handling this is impressive Not really, they jailed the experts who told them that they needed to act quickly, sat on it for a month, and finally did something about it when it was already out of hand.
  - brigandish 7y ago
    > they jailed the experts who told them that they needed to act quickly If you don't mind me asking, where did you see that info?
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      I don't have the exact articles on hand right now, but here is a newer article on the suppression: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/world/asia/china-coronavi...
- netsharc 7y ago
  Huh, I would say you're in the wrong thread to claim it's "impressive", if this guy's video is to be believed, it's a whole lot of chaos and lack of supplies...
  - mantap 7y ago
    We have gone from the first confirmed human-to-human transmission to tens of thousands of cases in something like two weeks. No amount of preparation will prevent chaos and shortages in a situation like this. I watched the CDC press conference today and saw nothing but fear written on their faces. And that is with far more advanced notice than the Chinese had.
pmoriarty 7y ago
Thank you so much for this transcript. Reading through it made it clear that: 1 - Wuhan's health care system is overwhelmed 2 - There's not enough transportation, test kits, masks, and hospital beds, or volunteers 3 - Many sick people are not even bothering to go to the hospital 4 - There's poor communication and rumors flying around 5 - People are frightened, panicking, and suspecting the worst This tells me that: A - there are likely way more people infected than there are confirmed cases, but possibly more deaths too of those who never made it in to hospitals B - Many wouldn't have died had they had more adequate health care, better transportation and more test kits So, for the rest of us who are sitting on our hands now, glued to social media or the television waiting to see how this will unfold, our time would be much more productively spent planning for when the outbreak hits our local area. Volunteer. Get connected with volunteer organizations. Donate. See what you can do to ensure there's adequate transportation, communication and resources when the outbreak hits your area. One thing I'm really curious about that I haven't heard covered yet is if people who get sick and recover become immune. If so, they should feel safe in volunteering to come in contact with the sick and help them directly after they've recovered themselves. Cooperation, preparation, organization, and mutual aid are crucial.

colinprince 7y ago

I watched the whole thing. It was riveting. Don't forget to turn on CC if you need translation. It is a volunteer transalation. The reporter, Chen Qiushi, describes his observations in Wuhan, a city of more than 10 million. His preamble: "My name has been flagged in China." "If the content contains 'Chenqiushi' or 'CQS', or my face, it will not be sent on Wechat. ... if you [share on wechat], your wechat account will be deleted, like mine."" He describes visits he made to hospitals in Wuhan and the general state in the city. It is well worth listening to / reading. Some points that stuck with me: People cannot get to hospital because there is a critical lack of transportation. There is a critical lack of test kits, so residents do not believe they will be diagnosed, so they stay home. The original (not translated) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXozpbomAns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXozpbomAns (thanks Roritharr)

Roritharr 7y ago
I really wonder if I made myself unemployable in China because I posted this. How far does the censoring actually go?
- mantap 7y ago
  China is an autocratic dictatorship so the rules can and do change at any time, retroactively and arbitrarily. That said you aren't going to be blacklisted for a single comment on HN. That sounds like the kind of thing the US would do.
  - jdkee 7y ago
    No, that sounds like the thing China would do once it has perfected pattern recognition in 2023 or so.
- iliketosleep 7y ago
  It goes far enough that your concern is valid. Since HN is not exactly mainstream and many Chinese people are posting similar kinds of videos, you're probably okay in this case. However, if you want to make honest comments about China online and still want to travel there, I highly recommend that you post anonymously.

pier25 7y ago

Totally off topic but... Chinese seems like a very efficient language. The guy doesn't seem to be speaking so fast but the subtitles are conveying a lot of information really fast.

kordlessagain 7y ago
It's a tonal language, which enables multiple use of a single letter/tone. Evidently English speakers have trouble detecting proper tone..
abj 7y ago
Here's [1] a paper on information density vs speed of speech, done by the University of Lyon. I am not sure how accurate their methods are, but they seem to believe that some languages convey more information per syllable and for 5 out of 7 languages, that ones with lower information density are spoken faster. Note that the sample size was only 59 and only compared how fast 20 different texts were read out, all silences that lasted longer than 150 ms were edited out as well. [1] http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/fulltext/pellegrino/Pellegrino_to%20appear_Language.pdf http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/fulltext/pellegrino/Pellegri...
- pier25 7y ago
  Interesting. In that paper Mandarin has the lowest syllable rate and the highest information density. https://imgur.com/4zwH1Ml https://imgur.com/4zwH1Ml

dredmorbius 7y ago

Subtitles, slightly edited for reading: https://pastebin.com/raw/VrLPVC2H https://pastebin.com/raw/VrLPVC2H