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The full danger was unknown in the initial stages. Provincial officials were downplaying it for various reasons, and until the very end of December it wasn't kn

The full danger was unknown in the initial stages. Provincial officials were downplaying it for various reasons, and until the very end of December it wasn't known to even transmit person-to-person. Once the threat was clear, the government of China acted much more alacrity and decisiveness than any Western country, which have had months of advance notice.

zozbot234 7y ago
"The very end of December" was 20+ days prior to the Wuhan lockdown, which was was essentially the only instance where China officially acknowledged the disease - before then, the local government was having police caution their doctors and scientists not to talk or "spread untrue rumors" about it. In the meantime, people in Wuhan and elsewhere were just hanging out as usual with no social distancing behaviors whatsoever. Not even wearing protective masks, which is a common habit there unlike the West.
- coliveira 7y ago
  People are very quick to blame Chinese officials, but I think they were correct in avoiding panic before knowing for sure the true dimensions of the problem they had at hand. The government has its credibility at stake: if you start using harsh measures without evidence, you lose credibility for the next time it is really needed.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    > People are very quick to blame Chinese officials, but I think they were correct in avoiding panic That's for sure but there's a useful middle ground between mindless panic and total complacency, and these Chinese officials were way too far on the complacency side for quite some time.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    "You lose credibility for the next time it is really needed" when I hear the government harrass NBA officials, gamers, non-citizens of the world when they criticize the CCP, going around banning movies and books left and right, never mind the extraordinary surveillance state it has built for its own citizens. I feel like the CCP has already lost its credibility when it can't have a spine and a composure, constantly feeling insecure against anyone who criticizes them. Fuck the CCP.
    - SZJX 7y ago
      A quite black-and-white view to take when it's shown pretty well in this letter how the containment strategy they adopted apparently cut down the transmission a lot and potentially prevented many deaths. Would an alternative government that you propose do better in China? Very debatable. The world is not a good vs. evil story you know.
      - adventured 7y ago
        Most countries would not intentionally cover up serious outbreaks like this, much less do it twice (as previously with SARS). They wouldn't threaten and silence numerous doctors that tried to warn everyone. They wouldn't blockade access to one of the world's largest cities, to prevent outside health inspectors from assessing what was really going on. It wasn't until the first week of February that they were willing to let a major contingent of outside experts in, including from the US. That was two months into the outbreak and a point where things had already gotten very bad. If this had started in France and the US asked to send experts in to help, France would not deny that request, they wouldn't blockade Paris off from all foreign access to hide what was really happening (how bad it was, and what they were doing to people).
  - Haga 7y ago
    [Citation needed] China is always great- according to China. And the WHO is saying it too.
  - Renaud 7y ago
    You have to be kidding. They were correct in threatening a doctor who reported what he saw (facts) to retract his statements as being _false_? The local government didn't want to believe in the threat and wanted very much to keep any negative news hushed out of fear of looking bad to the central government. So there you have it, a country governed by fear where people prefer to hide issues instead of quickly seeking help. They could have done it through internal channels, without the public knowing but no, they crushed the messengers and tried to hide the facts until it was too late. The central government admitted it itself: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1506445-20200203.htm https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1506445-20200203.h...
- fma 7y ago
  I can give China the benefit of the doubt that not everything was known. Or even blame them for suppressing info. But we (the world, US) knew the severity 2 months ago and Trump was still trying to downplay it. Fox News is still downplaying it. They called a "Democratic Hoax". I live in a conservative area and residents are cursing out local leaders for canceling events, canceling school...
  - nxc18 7y ago
    Now Fox News is blaming it on the liberals for being focused on impeachment. Its incredibly frustrating how irresponsible they're being. Clearly their viewers are quite gullible and are going to fall for their bullshit. That could literally cost lives, especially given the demographics of their audience. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-coronavirus-story-was-ignored-by-media-obsessed-with-impeachment https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-coronavirus-s... For readers wondering why that piece is problematic: 1) Coronavirus was receiving widespread coverage during the impeachment trial. 2) Trump was still ignoring this during impeachment. 3) Trump & the Republicans were calling coronavirus a democratic hoax up until February 28.
    - fma 7y ago
      One of my neighbors is a Trump supporter. He just shared a photo on Facebook of Pelosi that had the caption "This is the real virus". He's a nice guy, too...
  - caseysoftware 7y ago
    I live in Austin where people are still lamenting SXSW being canceled and the Democrat Mayor was still encouraging people to go out to concerts after he canceled SXSW. And the tech press mocked "no handshakes" until less than a month ago. Stupid knows no political party.
    - nojvek 7y ago
      The only way I see the mocking change is when they see their close ones being infected. We haven't seen anything like this (at-least in our lifetime) where the entire world was in semi-lockdown. Sure our president is really downplaying it, but how do you even fight something that makes some people sick, and not others. There could be 1000s of carriers of COVID-19 who don't even know it.
jyrkesh 7y ago
The local police imprisoned a doctor for speaking out about a fast-growing pneumonia disease. They didn't just ignore it, they actively quashed discussion of it
- throw_564324 7y ago
  They did not imprison him. They did squash discussion of it. Once the national government found out, they fired the local officials and lauded the doctor as a hero.
jrumbut 7y ago
The fact that there wasn't a credible free press to report responsibly on an emerging illness or a free vote to hold officials accountable are not at all unrelated to the authoritarian system that allowed them to build a hospital fast or close a city or whatever they did well on. I'll admit, though, that I wouldn't trade my right to vote for a cure for the common cold, coronavirus, or anything else.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > authoritarian system that allowed them to build a hospital fast or close a city or whatever they did well on. Look, this is a dangerous meme in more ways than one. Italy and Spain managed to lock down entire cities, and those are countries with a strong tradition of democracy. Emergency powers, martial law etc. are a thing, and there's even quite a bit of precedent for using them to deal w/ disease outbreaks. Even in the US.
  - fock 7y ago
    well, Spain is still a monarchy (and has been since the caliphate was pushed back), had a Civil war, where fascists won and then ruled for 40 years... Then the king declared that he would like democracy more than autoritarian rule (without him). So much to a strong tradition of democracy...
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      Spain has a _constitutional monarch_ the same approach as the United Kingdom. This is actually a more stable choice than America's. In constitutional monarchy the monarch is Head of State, a figurehead role with no real personal power. Because monarchs are born not elected this figurehead has no semblance of democratic legitimacy, it's obvious to everyone that they shouldn't get any power, yet as a symbol they are long-lived and emphasise continuity even as political change happens around them. Elected Politicians on the other hand actually run the legislature and executive government. That is, the laws you obey are made by people you elected to make them, but at times of crisis the living symbol of your country isn't some politician roughly half the country doesn't like. This works so much better than the US system that Americans charged with trying to make new countries or fix broken ones (after "regime change" for example) do not follow the US model for many decades. If you're an optimist, the US model worked once and maybe they got lucky. If you're a pessimist we're just waiting for the cracks to get bad enough that it falls apart.
ssss11 7y ago
Thry silenced doctors, faked numbers to the medical community and eventually the lockdown was to save the Chinese economy & people not to stop the spread overseas, however, I’m sure the communist party will claim that.
handedness 7y ago
> The full danger was unknown in the initial stages. The danger was sufficiently known, sufficiently early. Those sounding the alarm were silenced.

zozbot234 7y ago

"The very end of December" was 20+ days prior to the Wuhan lockdown, which was was essentially the only instance where China officially acknowledged the disease - before then, the local government was having police caution their doctors and scientists not to talk or "spread untrue rumors" about it. In the meantime, people in Wuhan and elsewhere were just hanging out as usual with no social distancing behaviors whatsoever. Not even wearing protective masks, which is a common habit there unlike the West.

coliveira 7y ago
People are very quick to blame Chinese officials, but I think they were correct in avoiding panic before knowing for sure the true dimensions of the problem they had at hand. The government has its credibility at stake: if you start using harsh measures without evidence, you lose credibility for the next time it is really needed.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > People are very quick to blame Chinese officials, but I think they were correct in avoiding panic That's for sure but there's a useful middle ground between mindless panic and total complacency, and these Chinese officials were way too far on the complacency side for quite some time.
- spectramax 7y ago
  "You lose credibility for the next time it is really needed" when I hear the government harrass NBA officials, gamers, non-citizens of the world when they criticize the CCP, going around banning movies and books left and right, never mind the extraordinary surveillance state it has built for its own citizens. I feel like the CCP has already lost its credibility when it can't have a spine and a composure, constantly feeling insecure against anyone who criticizes them. Fuck the CCP.
  - SZJX 7y ago
    A quite black-and-white view to take when it's shown pretty well in this letter how the containment strategy they adopted apparently cut down the transmission a lot and potentially prevented many deaths. Would an alternative government that you propose do better in China? Very debatable. The world is not a good vs. evil story you know.
    - adventured 7y ago
      Most countries would not intentionally cover up serious outbreaks like this, much less do it twice (as previously with SARS). They wouldn't threaten and silence numerous doctors that tried to warn everyone. They wouldn't blockade access to one of the world's largest cities, to prevent outside health inspectors from assessing what was really going on. It wasn't until the first week of February that they were willing to let a major contingent of outside experts in, including from the US. That was two months into the outbreak and a point where things had already gotten very bad. If this had started in France and the US asked to send experts in to help, France would not deny that request, they wouldn't blockade Paris off from all foreign access to hide what was really happening (how bad it was, and what they were doing to people).
- Haga 7y ago
  [Citation needed] China is always great- according to China. And the WHO is saying it too.
- Renaud 7y ago
  You have to be kidding. They were correct in threatening a doctor who reported what he saw (facts) to retract his statements as being _false_? The local government didn't want to believe in the threat and wanted very much to keep any negative news hushed out of fear of looking bad to the central government. So there you have it, a country governed by fear where people prefer to hide issues instead of quickly seeking help. They could have done it through internal channels, without the public knowing but no, they crushed the messengers and tried to hide the facts until it was too late. The central government admitted it itself: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1506445-20200203.htm https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1506445-20200203.h...
fma 7y ago
I can give China the benefit of the doubt that not everything was known. Or even blame them for suppressing info. But we (the world, US) knew the severity 2 months ago and Trump was still trying to downplay it. Fox News is still downplaying it. They called a "Democratic Hoax". I live in a conservative area and residents are cursing out local leaders for canceling events, canceling school...
- nxc18 7y ago
  Now Fox News is blaming it on the liberals for being focused on impeachment. Its incredibly frustrating how irresponsible they're being. Clearly their viewers are quite gullible and are going to fall for their bullshit. That could literally cost lives, especially given the demographics of their audience. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-coronavirus-story-was-ignored-by-media-obsessed-with-impeachment https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-coronavirus-s... For readers wondering why that piece is problematic: 1) Coronavirus was receiving widespread coverage during the impeachment trial. 2) Trump was still ignoring this during impeachment. 3) Trump & the Republicans were calling coronavirus a democratic hoax up until February 28.
  - fma 7y ago
    One of my neighbors is a Trump supporter. He just shared a photo on Facebook of Pelosi that had the caption "This is the real virus". He's a nice guy, too...
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  I live in Austin where people are still lamenting SXSW being canceled and the Democrat Mayor was still encouraging people to go out to concerts after he canceled SXSW. And the tech press mocked "no handshakes" until less than a month ago. Stupid knows no political party.
  - nojvek 7y ago
    The only way I see the mocking change is when they see their close ones being infected. We haven't seen anything like this (at-least in our lifetime) where the entire world was in semi-lockdown. Sure our president is really downplaying it, but how do you even fight something that makes some people sick, and not others. There could be 1000s of carriers of COVID-19 who don't even know it.

jyrkesh 7y ago

The local police imprisoned a doctor for speaking out about a fast-growing pneumonia disease. They didn't just ignore it, they actively quashed discussion of it

throw_564324 7y ago
They did not imprison him. They did squash discussion of it. Once the national government found out, they fired the local officials and lauded the doctor as a hero.

jrumbut 7y ago

The fact that there wasn't a credible free press to report responsibly on an emerging illness or a free vote to hold officials accountable are not at all unrelated to the authoritarian system that allowed them to build a hospital fast or close a city or whatever they did well on. I'll admit, though, that I wouldn't trade my right to vote for a cure for the common cold, coronavirus, or anything else.

zozbot234 7y ago
> authoritarian system that allowed them to build a hospital fast or close a city or whatever they did well on. Look, this is a dangerous meme in more ways than one. Italy and Spain managed to lock down entire cities, and those are countries with a strong tradition of democracy. Emergency powers, martial law etc. are a thing, and there's even quite a bit of precedent for using them to deal w/ disease outbreaks. Even in the US.
- fock 7y ago
  well, Spain is still a monarchy (and has been since the caliphate was pushed back), had a Civil war, where fascists won and then ruled for 40 years... Then the king declared that he would like democracy more than autoritarian rule (without him). So much to a strong tradition of democracy...
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Spain has a _constitutional monarch_ the same approach as the United Kingdom. This is actually a more stable choice than America's. In constitutional monarchy the monarch is Head of State, a figurehead role with no real personal power. Because monarchs are born not elected this figurehead has no semblance of democratic legitimacy, it's obvious to everyone that they shouldn't get any power, yet as a symbol they are long-lived and emphasise continuity even as political change happens around them. Elected Politicians on the other hand actually run the legislature and executive government. That is, the laws you obey are made by people you elected to make them, but at times of crisis the living symbol of your country isn't some politician roughly half the country doesn't like. This works so much better than the US system that Americans charged with trying to make new countries or fix broken ones (after "regime change" for example) do not follow the US model for many decades. If you're an optimist, the US model worked once and maybe they got lucky. If you're a pessimist we're just waiting for the cracks to get bad enough that it falls apart.

ssss11 7y ago

Thry silenced doctors, faked numbers to the medical community and eventually the lockdown was to save the Chinese economy & people not to stop the spread overseas, however, I’m sure the communist party will claim that.

handedness 7y ago

> The full danger was unknown in the initial stages. The danger was sufficiently known, sufficiently early. Those sounding the alarm were silenced.