7 ms·

The US is literally doing the exact same thing right now.

by octonion 7y ago

smbullet 7y ago
Source?
tunesmith 7y ago
I'd really like to start seeing less of this sort of comment on Hacker News. It's not even close to literally true.
- monocasa 7y ago
  The Republican talking points right now are that coronavirus doesn't really matter, and it's being blown up as a democratic attempt to have an election year topic. When all my Republican family is spouting the same BS, that means it's being pushed hard in the soft right wing information channels. EDIT: Even NBC news is hinting that government policies are getting in the way of determining real corona virus infection rates. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/n-y-gov-cuomo-questions-low-rate-coronavirus-testing-u-n1155331 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/n-y-gov-cuomo-questions... The number of tested individuals are only about 2x the number of confirmed cases. Not a great margin of error.
- CraigJPerry 7y ago
  What part? “This is a country that hid the coronavirus case for 2-3 weeks” That’s the same as the USA refusing to test everyone in sufficient quantities right? South Korea is testing 10k per day, has the US completed even 10k tests yet? “let 5 million Wuhan residents leave the city” That’s every state apart from perhaps 1 section on NY city and small parts of Seattle. “doctored numbers” Thats the refusing to test thing again right? There’s states with reportedly zero cases. Yeah right. “then most recently had government press try to spin the disease as if it didn’t come out of Wuhan, but rather somewhere other countries” That’s the current right wing press stating this is all baloney from the dems for their benefit. I’ve given a point by point refutation to the best of my ability, care to respond thoughtfully?
  - allovernow 7y ago
    The difference is that in the US all of this is due to incompetence, but given the nature of our laws and society people are free to point out the shortcomings of the response. In China you are publicly admonished and/or disappeared for going against the official government narrative. That is a stark difference between not just Western/Chinese government, but culture, and cannot be underestimated. It leads to a totally different society and hopefully because of freedom of speech people will be more likely to take protective measures sooner as they realize that the government is responding poorly. Also you're much less likely to keep the majority of the population ignorant of an outbreak when you don't have a legal and judicial speech suppression machine. Yes, their authoritarian measures were effective in containing the spread (allegedly, all sources afaik from China have gone silent), but they did spend at least a month hiding the outbreak and keeping people from talking about it, for reasons I won't go into. Not all governments are created equal. Not all cultures are the same. That's pure fantasy brought about by decades of indoctrination in the west. Note that this isn't just blind nationalism. I fully recognize that under these circumstances the extreme authoritarianism in China may prove to be the best containment measure out of any other country short of North Korea. Good luck convincing 360MM Americans to stay home for a month.
    - hackinthebochs 7y ago
      >The difference is that in the US all of this is due to incompetence I wouldn't be so sure. Trump's stock market is his best argument for re-election. It's very reasonable to think he would want to downplay anything that could disrupt the economy in the run up to the election.
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        That theory still alleges incompetence, because covering it up for an extra month or even two won't impact the elections which are a long time from now.
    - beaunative 7y ago
      The virus can still kill you no matter how 'free' you feel you are. I'm pretty sure dead people are much more freer than us as they don't have to think about any of these non-sense.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- monocasa 7y ago
  Just breaking: White House orders federal health officials to treat coronavirus planning as classified, something that has never been done for public health emergencies. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-secrecy-exclusive/exclusive-white-house-told-federal-health-agency-to-classify-coronavirus-deliberations-sources-idUSKBN20Y2LM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-secrec...
  - Der_Einzige 7y ago
    Holy crap that is really really bad
tome 7y ago
I'm a bit surprised this is being downvoted. It's quite clear the federal government has been suppressing testing. (I assume that's what the comment refers to, not that the USA is forcing anyone to work in factories).
- surge 7y ago
  I thought the comment was trying to get factories out of China and more manufacturing happening domestically (especially now that we're seeing the downsides to globalism with medical supply issues, etc). That's more or less been the whole point of the trade war. This is also good for the environment, people cut down trees in Canada, ship them to china, that get made into things, to get sold in the US, the carbon footprint on all that transport must be enormous, especially when you factor in the environmentally lax conditions in overseas manufacturing that effects the whole world.

The US is literally doing the exact same thing right now.

smbullet 7y ago

Source?

tunesmith 7y ago

I'd really like to start seeing less of this sort of comment on Hacker News. It's not even close to literally true.

monocasa 7y ago
The Republican talking points right now are that coronavirus doesn't really matter, and it's being blown up as a democratic attempt to have an election year topic. When all my Republican family is spouting the same BS, that means it's being pushed hard in the soft right wing information channels. EDIT: Even NBC news is hinting that government policies are getting in the way of determining real corona virus infection rates. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/n-y-gov-cuomo-questions-low-rate-coronavirus-testing-u-n1155331 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/n-y-gov-cuomo-questions... The number of tested individuals are only about 2x the number of confirmed cases. Not a great margin of error.
CraigJPerry 7y ago
What part? “This is a country that hid the coronavirus case for 2-3 weeks” That’s the same as the USA refusing to test everyone in sufficient quantities right? South Korea is testing 10k per day, has the US completed even 10k tests yet? “let 5 million Wuhan residents leave the city” That’s every state apart from perhaps 1 section on NY city and small parts of Seattle. “doctored numbers” Thats the refusing to test thing again right? There’s states with reportedly zero cases. Yeah right. “then most recently had government press try to spin the disease as if it didn’t come out of Wuhan, but rather somewhere other countries” That’s the current right wing press stating this is all baloney from the dems for their benefit. I’ve given a point by point refutation to the best of my ability, care to respond thoughtfully?
- allovernow 7y ago
  The difference is that in the US all of this is due to incompetence, but given the nature of our laws and society people are free to point out the shortcomings of the response. In China you are publicly admonished and/or disappeared for going against the official government narrative. That is a stark difference between not just Western/Chinese government, but culture, and cannot be underestimated. It leads to a totally different society and hopefully because of freedom of speech people will be more likely to take protective measures sooner as they realize that the government is responding poorly. Also you're much less likely to keep the majority of the population ignorant of an outbreak when you don't have a legal and judicial speech suppression machine. Yes, their authoritarian measures were effective in containing the spread (allegedly, all sources afaik from China have gone silent), but they did spend at least a month hiding the outbreak and keeping people from talking about it, for reasons I won't go into. Not all governments are created equal. Not all cultures are the same. That's pure fantasy brought about by decades of indoctrination in the west. Note that this isn't just blind nationalism. I fully recognize that under these circumstances the extreme authoritarianism in China may prove to be the best containment measure out of any other country short of North Korea. Good luck convincing 360MM Americans to stay home for a month.
  - hackinthebochs 7y ago
    >The difference is that in the US all of this is due to incompetence I wouldn't be so sure. Trump's stock market is his best argument for re-election. It's very reasonable to think he would want to downplay anything that could disrupt the economy in the run up to the election.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      That theory still alleges incompetence, because covering it up for an extra month or even two won't impact the elections which are a long time from now.
  - beaunative 7y ago
    The virus can still kill you no matter how 'free' you feel you are. I'm pretty sure dead people are much more freer than us as they don't have to think about any of these non-sense.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
monocasa 7y ago
Just breaking: White House orders federal health officials to treat coronavirus planning as classified, something that has never been done for public health emergencies. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-secrecy-exclusive/exclusive-white-house-told-federal-health-agency-to-classify-coronavirus-deliberations-sources-idUSKBN20Y2LM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-secrec...
- Der_Einzige 7y ago
  Holy crap that is really really bad

tome 7y ago

I'm a bit surprised this is being downvoted. It's quite clear the federal government has been suppressing testing. (I assume that's what the comment refers to, not that the USA is forcing anyone to work in factories).

surge 7y ago
I thought the comment was trying to get factories out of China and more manufacturing happening domestically (especially now that we're seeing the downsides to globalism with medical supply issues, etc). That's more or less been the whole point of the trade war. This is also good for the environment, people cut down trees in Canada, ship them to china, that get made into things, to get sold in the US, the carbon footprint on all that transport must be enormous, especially when you factor in the environmentally lax conditions in overseas manufacturing that effects the whole world.