25 ms·

Chinese scientists destroyed proof of virus in December?

354 points by zeveb 7y ago

whatshisface 7y ago
It is interesting to think about how such a counterproductive attitude could develop. I imagine that the Party saw a problem, suppressed some people who were impacted by it, and saw the problem go away (at least for them). The they saw another problem, suppressed some people, and saw that problem go away too. After doing this for several decades, their default reflex upon seeing a problem was to suppress whoever was complaining about it. This strategy worked for small problems that would stay about the same size over time, because they could tell the sufferers to suck it up and at most a few people would become discontent. Eventually the strategy became a habit, and the habit became an integral cultural component of their way of governing. Then, one day, they saw a problem, suppressed some people... and discovered that the small problem would not stay small and suppressible after all.
- kangnkodos 7y ago
  This is pure speculation without one spec of proof: My guess is that the regional government covered up the problem. But once the national disease authorities learned of the issue, they did the right thing because of their experience with diseases over the last decade. I can't see the whole article. It might have some information which supports or refutes my guess. --- Edit. From the full article: "on January 3, the National Health Commission, China’s top medical authority, issued its own gagging orders"
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    It is not really possible for outsiders to tell how orders are being moved around within the party mechanism. China's message is that the regional government is at fault, but that's what they always say when there is an expression of discontent among their people. It is not "kosher" for the central government to take the blame for anything, so you can never really believe it when someone else takes the blame. Maybe the CIA knows, but anyone who isn't tapping internal communications is not likely to get beyond speculation. In any case, a culture of honesty has to start at the top, and it is likely that the local government "knew what not to report." There are many situations where the claim that no official report was given to the central government would be true, while at the same time the central government played a role in the suppression. So as for speculation, I would say that there are many possibilities where the central government had a role to play in the suppression (even if it was played over years before), but only one possibility where the local authority went off and did something totally out of line. Edit: >The laboratory findings were relayed to officials in Beijing at the Centre for Disease Control (CDC). The information should have alerted national health chiefs to a looming crisis, but on January 3, the National Health Commission, China’s top medical authority, issued its own gagging orders. Laboratories were told not to release any information and to hand over or destroy the samples. Well, it looks like the local government didn't know what not to report after all. (Thanks to makomk's comment for pointing this out.)
    - petre 7y ago
      A fish rots from the head down after all.
  - makomk 7y ago
    According to the article, this came from the top: the national medical authorities were directly telling the labs to destroy the samples and keep it a secret.
- rapphil 7y ago
  This behavior reminds me of what happened with the Chernobyl power plant.
  - petre 7y ago
    The fall of the USSR is attributed in part to the Chernobyl accident in Mikhail Gorbachev's memoirs. I'm not saying the CCP's days are numbered, but maybe, just maybe they will live in interesting times.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      Of course their days are numbered, no regime lasts forever.
    - gdubs 7y ago
      Midway through HBO’s Chernobyl it struck me: this was the start of the fall of the USSR. I guess that’s obvious, but the dominant narrative growing up was that the US outspent them militarily and it bankrupted them. But it was so eloquently shown in the miniseries that it was really about the facade coming down — the illusion of the all-knowing regime crumbling into that vast, hellish pit at the center of the reactor.
      - petre 7y ago
        You could watch Adam Curtis' HyperNormalisation documentary for further insight into this. It's about the current political elite but comoares the current situation with the one in the USSR before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
      - dathinab 7y ago
        Another think the US likes to look at differently: US: Marchal plan was self-less help. Reality: Marchal plan was mostly self-help, preventing a economical collaps of the US and securing strong longterm influence in the EU/Germany to make sure the EU/Germany won't side with communism in the future. Also allowing them "secure/safe/accepted" military presence in the EU/Germany "just on the border to their enemy". Etc. (Don't get me wrong. It was still awesome and I'm still grateful. Just don't go around stating the EU/Germany owns the USA and should do thinks which would harm itself to support the USA, especially given that currently the US is slightly falling from grace.).
- LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
  You are spot on. Now realize that all you read about china in the press, is created by this strategy. The green turn around, everything. And our press copys blindly from state media news outlets and organizations that have been corrupted with soft power. Meanwhile on the ground, the world begs to differ. The west aint perfect either (Julian Assange, Snowden), but at least dissent is able to reach the ears of the public, before beeing silenced. And the government wishful thinking aloud is discussed as the foolishness it is.
- billfruit 7y ago
  There seems to be much misinformation, as per one translation of sources, the Chinese CDC only asked that the samples which are kept in unsecured conditions/facilities be destroyed.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    The way things work in governments around the world, that detail doesn't really tell us anything. The interpretation of "unsecured condition/facility" would be completely up to what the local government thought the central government was implying.
    - billfruit 7y ago
      OTOH preventing unsecured facilities from holding such samples seems a valid thing to do. The point the being the highly charged political divide on this issue makes it impossible to trust sources on either side of this and similar matters.
      - whatshisface 7y ago
        Well, we do know that the local government was suppressing things, because both sides claim that.
jmkd 7y ago
Paywall-free http://archive.md/xOKiu http://archive.md/xOKiu
- holyavengerone 7y ago
  Dead link :(
  - exikyut 7y ago
    It works for me. How's it failing on your end?
    - kgc 7y ago
      DNS resolution error. Seems blocked at DNS level.
      - doomjunky 7y ago
        https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/ https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/
inscionent 7y ago
Where is the proof? The Times claims reporting by Caixin Global. I see no stories by Caixin that confirm this.
- ebg13 7y ago
  Do you mean this one? https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-signs-of-a-sars-like-virus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-101521745.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-s...
  - inscionent 7y ago
    Thanks. Heaven forbid the times from cross linking to references.
ceedan 7y ago
China's monthly infectious disease report numbers had 1.71m cases of infectious disease in December 2019, compared to only like ~700k in December 2018. Interestingly the number of deaths from infectious disease declined in December 2019 vs 2018...
- ajross 7y ago
  Cite for that? While the PRC trying to suppress evidence of an outbreak is totally plausible, a 1M undercount of COVID-19 cases in one month just doesn't match the data on the ground. Something like that would have run rampant across asia by now. Where are they hiding all the bodies? Sorry, but this sounds like a mixed up fact, or a conspiracy rumor.
  - ceedan 7y ago
    Dec 2017 - 700k - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136933793.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136933793.htm Dec 2018 - 712k - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/27/c_137778435.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/27/c_137778435.htm Dec 2019 - 1.71m - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/01/c_138748020.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/01/c_138748020.htm
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - marknutter 7y ago
    There may not be bodies to "hide" because the mortality rate is far lower than what is being reported right now.
    - ajross 7y ago
      Then how does that square with the data from the west, which broadly confirms the CFR China reported originally? Why are Italians dying like flies to this thing the Chinese were able to hide? This "The CFR is much lower!" thing is rapidly becoming a conspiracy-level fallacy... It's probably true that there are a bunch of unmeasured cases (a reasonable study yesterday guessed at a 6x undercount) and that the CFR is currently overstated because of sampling problems with test availability. It is absolutely not possible that there were a million cases in Hubei in december. Not from this disease. Come on, folks.
wwarner 7y ago
I'd be much more interested in what credible Chinese sources know about the disease and its epidemiology. Much of the reporting on the Chinese response has been overtly xenophobic and added to the confusion at just the moment we needed more clarity.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  It's not reported on but most of or knowledge about th course the disease takes comes from Chinese studies. Some Italian ones may be out there.
- ng12 7y ago
  It's hard to feel bad for a country that jails doctors for telling their colleagues about a new viral contagion.
  - billfruit 7y ago
    He was neither arrested nor jailed. Speaks the amount of misinformation going around.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - anoncake 7y ago
    It's a lot easier to feel bad for its inhabitants.
  - dang 7y ago
    We ban accounts that post like this. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606977 and don't do it again.
- enaaem 7y ago
  There are no credible sources in China, since there is no free press. Information and narrative is carefully controlled by the party through: State controlled media The great firewall of China. Most of the internet is blocked, including Facebook, Twitter and HN. Monitoring and censoring of all social media For alternative news we are depended on rogue reporters, whose credibility is tragically also unknown.
btilly 7y ago
I am generally against the death penalty. I am OK with it in this case. And for having all relatives of the people who were involved in making this decision being tattooed with signs saying things like, "My uncle's coverup caused COVID-19 to go worldwide." And for having all Chinese officials to have regular reminders that this is the punishment for covering up health crises. Penalizing family members for life is admittedly unfair. However Chinese society places a premium on the importance of family. And we want a penalty that will deter officials. I cannot think of a better deterrent in that society than knowing that their wives, children, siblings and parents will forever bear the mark of shame should they screw up.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Ben, this is absolutely beneath you. Collective punishment went the way of the Dodo long ago, and rightly so.
  - btilly 7y ago
    Indeed. Collective punishment is prohibited in armed conflict by article 33 of the Geneva conflict, from 1947. Degradation as punishment was prohibited by International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in the mid-1960s. There is a taboo against it for good reason. However once projected body counts of the results of someone's actions are measured in the tens of millions, and the same family members would have been expected to be beneficiaries of the person's intended actions, what punishment would be proportional to the consequences? I'm OK with abandoning normal taboos if the suffering of a handful prevents a repetition of this kind of event. And let's be clear. This is far from the first time that local coverups by Chinese officials have put the whole world's health at risk. (The most extreme example being the anemic first response to SARS.) And it is extremely unlikely to be the last time that Chinese officials will be in a position to be tempted to try coverups in the future. In a society and country that already accepts the death penalty as normal, what would YOU suggest to be sure that those future officials are deterred from even TRYING to gamble with the lives of the world? Yes. What I proposed was shocking. It was supposed to be. It is unpopular. This is again not a surprise. But do you have a better solution?
- 7y ago
Leary 7y ago
Here's the real article: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-of-the-coronavirus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-in-china https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-...
- inscionent 7y ago
  Thank you.
- dang 7y ago
  Normally we'd at least consider swapping the URL, but given how awfully this thread went, that would be too much loss of context.
- holyavengerone 7y ago
  Thanks a ton!!
boplicity 7y ago
Remember Li Wenliang. We warned his fellow doctors about the situation, in December. The police punished him for this. He later died of the disease. We are all suffering because an authoritarian government suppressed the good intentions of its citizens. The Chinese Government is squarely to blame for this situation. Could it have been prevented if they had acted responsibly? I don't know – but there is a strong chance that the answer is yes. We'll never know, however, because that is not the path they took.
- vesinisa 7y ago
  OTOH the same authoritarian government quarantined a city the size of New York and built field hospitals for thousands of people on very short notice when the situation truly got out of hand.
  - madengr 7y ago
    Killed 20 million too in the great revolution.
    - tomrod 7y ago
      This was during the COVID-19 outbreak?
    - dang 7y ago
      Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. Also, would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments generally? We unbanned you awhile ago because your comments had improved, but they've backslidden. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
    Sure, but they closed the barn gates after the horses had already bolted. Edit: Oof, the truth hurts don't it?
  - BiasRegularizer 7y ago
lighttower 7y ago
The narrative in China right now is finding ways of externalizing the problem. One narrative either pushed intentionally or by fake news sources are blaming American soldiers that were in Wuhan for a military fitness competition. While it sounds crazy it's widely believed. The source works for government in Guangzhou.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- archivist1 7y ago
  > The narrative in China right now... Because there's one narrative in China, folks, and this douchebag knows what it is. But seriously, don't buy what he's selling. The only narrative China needs right now is its victory lap. It's nearly stopped new cases. Xi visited Hebei/Wuhan. The comment above is wishful thinking of the highest order, and perfect projection. It's Western media and nincompoops like this clown who seem to need to play the "blame game" China got on with solving the problem. Now they're taking a victory lap and responding to requests to help overseas. The Chinese, if they are blaming anyone, are not blaming foreigners for this, they're blaming the Hebei provincial authorities for their initial mistakes in handling it. Because they've been successful at containing a virus in the largest country on Earth, they don't need to play the blame game. It's slow-to-act and complacement Western-style governments that are in desperate need of a finger of blame to point at anyone but themselves.
  - wurst_case 7y ago
    Honestly, both of you need to provide sources to support your point of view.
    - jdmg94 7y ago
      China literally sent a team of medics to Italy to help with the virus: https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/13/world/europe/13reuters-health-coronavirus-italy-respirators.html https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/13/world/europe/13re...
archivist1 7y ago
Drop the China bashing. If we're going to criticize any government on this issue, we need to criticize all of them. Was there really any government without guilt or incompetence in their handling of this? Really nobody who in any way delayed taking steps, nobody who in any way sat on information, nobody who in any way instructed a certain type of scale of coverage in an attempt to minimize panic? Let those without sin cast the first stone. But actually, I think the "blame game" is bullshit. Everyone should just be like, "Holy crap, this virus doesn't care about what passport you have, we all need to just work together on this." Good to see people contesting the blame narrative here, but better if we didn't promote this news at all. This is a highly technical site, surely there's a chance to share articles about studies, algorithms, ways data scientists/programmers/bioinformaticians can get involved, pool resources, donate cloud time, etc.
- marknutter 7y ago
  Ok, let's call it CPC bashing then, if that makes you feel better. What they have done during this whole debacle is despicable, and their attempts to push the conspiracy theory that the virus came from the US Military is just the icing on the cake.
  - archivist1 7y ago
    Let's call it "Westerners blaming China to feel better, while they all get the virus anyway". Seems to be Western-style policy in a nutshell right now. If you call saving millions of Chinese people despicable, it sounds like you're to be despised. The cake isn't cooked yet, but Western governments are already eager to play the blame game, while China got on with getting results. Nearly zero new cases. Contained to Hebei. You've been reading fake news... and worse, believing it. They're not pushing a conspiracy theory. They're taking a victory lap. The comments about it being a bio weapon are from the FM, who is just volleying back Pompeo's comment about it being the "China virus". That's all it is. Tit for tat. If you believe everyone in China is obsessed with blaming the US for the virus origins, or, worse, that Chinese people believe it's a bioweapon, you're wrong, sorry. They contained a crazy new pathogen in the biggest country on Earth, they don't need to play the blame game, and domestically their media is taking a victory lap. It's just revealing of Western incompetence, and insecurity that Western media is fanning these blaming narratives. If you want to make me feel better, I thank you. Start by admitting your pro-Western propoganda does not tell you what's really happening in China.
infinity0 7y ago
To be fair, western authorities had an even longer amount of time before the virus spread to their countries, and are doing about as well or slightly worse than the Chinese authorities did even given this initial suppression.
- gvjddbnvdrbv 7y ago
  We are doing far worse.
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    In what way? You do realize that taking dramatic measures “just to be safe” has severe consequences of its own right? Our supply chain will break down. People will kill them selves from this lockdown. Addicts will relapse. People will fall into depression. Nothing good. It is a very tight space to thread the needle—- overreact and do massive damage to our economy and physical and mental health. Too little and we overwhelm our medical system and more people die from the virus needlessly. It is very delicate balance. Add in 27/7 media of all forms plus intense political pressure to “do something!!!! “ and here we are. I don’t envy anybody in my regional government having to make this call. Ps: people downvoting this and other comments like it make my point. It is currently not okay to question our current actions. There is massive social and political pressure to move toward heavy handed measures... we should be allowed to be critical or question things. Groupthink is not a good thing.
    - jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
      So now it is groupthink? Curious. I was being downvoted to hell a month ago when I was telling people we should enable measures. You can definitely do things like: • stop all tourist and non-essential travel, giving airlines the option to freeze their accounts • enable work from home for all public employees • force private companies to do so too for jobs that can be • close all educational institutions and let them give lessons remotely if they want • ban non-work related gatherings • ramp up production of masks and other basic stuff • ban people from buying too much of 1 given item per day for even 1 year if necessary, without destroying the economy. That alone would have flattened the curve so much it is not even funny.
alloai 7y ago
I just searched the version in Chinese. This is the google translated version : "“” When the severity of the virus is unknown, many companies have been commissioned by different hospitals to perform sequencing. After the National Centers for Disease Control received the report, they ordered all units without safety qualifications to destroy all virus samples. Less than two weeks later, the full virus sequencing results were made available to the world. "“” I found that it's deplorable that so many white politicians and media practitioners lack professionalism and wisdom that caused so much severe spread around the world. Look at South Korean, it should be served as manual for pandemic crisis resolutions.
- tinza123 7y ago
  This. The misleading title seems to point to a completely different conclusion deliberately.
- dathinab 7y ago
  If this is the case than china acted fully responsible. _And any western country would have acted the same_. Especially it wouldn't mean any research result was destroyed just strands of the virus kept in places where it's not safe to keep them. This would be really sad that a media outed completely turned around the facts to put blame on China... I mean let's be honest if it would have started in the USA (like ironically the Spanish flue did, even through it had Spanish in it's name) then I'm pretty sure the results would have been far worse then they are now.
- dang 7y ago
  It's good that you're attempting to provide factual information. But it's bad that you're adding flamebait like "so many white politicians and media practitioners". Please keep doing the first and stop doing the second. That sentence is a specimen of the same pathogen you're deploring. Your comment would be just fine without it. For more explanation, see these links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606977 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20nationalis&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
spectramax 7y ago
Liberal societies around the world are afraid of making strong statements and criticism of the way China handled this outbreak. The CCP is separate from the Chinese people and it has created an aura of defiance, callous behavior and intolerance for truth that collides with their image. When someone says "Fuck the CCP", it should not be met with liberal racist card - this is not racism, but criticism of the goverment and IMO the CCP needs to be criticized, dismantled and revolted against by the Chinese themselves. This is starting to happen but on a very small scale after the Coronavirus mishandling. It is very much productive to play the "blame game" because ultimately, we want the Chinese government to shutdown these wet markets, allow free speech of their citizens.
- dathinab 7y ago
  Uhm, the CCP in how it acts wrt. indoctrination is acting quite racistic them self (doesn't matter that that might be by accident). So criticizing or even denouncing it can't really be called acting racistic. Well except if it's _obvious that you act that way because of racistic ideas instead of criticism_ . Which might very well be the case for some people. So if given out of context the sentence might be racistic or might not be racistic. Also depending on your culture it might be just a sign of strong annoyance and just that. Or a very strong insult. Because of this, it's not really appropriate to say it either way as it seen as a insult in more cultures then ones at which it's just seen as a expression of annoyance/dislike. There are many other, better and more appropriate ways to criticize them. Like pointing out that they act racistic themself, like it did above. Also the initial bad response mainly comes from problems with local governance not the CCP. While the CCP controls the local goverment tightly it's also an open secet that the local government often actes in their interest first and only then in the interest of the whole country, especially if they believe they can get away with it. In the end the country is just to big with to many people to be efficiently governed. Maybe in the future with the help of more technology but not now. Through they are trying their best. Also lets be honest. Just consider how it would have went if that virus would have sourced in the USA. I mean after having a example which is both bad (initial response) and good (follow up response) the response in the USA (or the EU) is still sup-par. I would not have been surprised that if it would have been sourced in the USA then it would have spread even faster around the world including china. (Also as far as I have heard China did ban part of the food trading, additionally I have heard pretty racist thinks about how chines people where at fault because they eat everything etc. But the truth is they mostly eat pork. And the virus most likely was _not_ transmitted through food, through maybe still alive food, but then again still alive _normal_ food)
auiya 7y ago
Is it possible the researchers handling this virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology simply screwed up and the release was accidental? That seems like the most plausible explanation to me, and especially given the institute's proximity to the seafood market on which the Chinese officials blamed the outbreak. I think it's pretty plain to see the story we've all been fed about the seafood market was a deflection attempt. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Wuhan has been working with bats and the various viruses they carry for many years... well before the BSL4 lab opened even. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17030870# https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17030870#
- paulmd 7y ago
  The suppression of researchers who sounded the alarm and forcing all the hospitals to return their samples certainly makes sense if you consider it as a "guilty reaction", after something they weren't supposed to be doing got loose. Or the government considers it embarrassing that the handlers were incompetent and this got loose. It could also just be the reaction of a government who is trying to downplay the virus and retain control of the narrative, however. Sequencing shows it's 96% similar to a wild strain of coronaviruses that has been previously studied in bats though, which argues against it being engineered.
  - auiya 7y ago
    Yeah I agree, it's likely not an engineered virus at all. It was likely incompetence on the part of the handlers, and a subsequent cover up to try and reduce/deflect culpability.
    - souprock 7y ago
      Those are not opposites. An engineered virus can escape via incompetence. A non-engineered virus can be intentionally released. We can't prove that the virus was or was not engineered unless somebody finds a copyright message in the RNA. We do however know that the Wuhan lab had engineered similar viruses, slightly modifying bat coronaviruses so that they would be much more active against human cell lines.
billfruit 7y ago
China reported the disease to WHO on 31 Dec 2019. The article is short on first hand information and long on speculation. I think articles like this are only going to add to confusion and misinformation.
- muyuu 7y ago
  Extremely late. Already discovered by Chinese doctors in November, and they were silenced by the government.
  - billfruit 7y ago
    It was isolated first on Dec 27th or thereabouts. Later retroactive investigation determined that some cases in late November was infact the same virus.
    - muyuu 7y ago
      That is assuming that the information in this article is incorrect. Could have been identified earlier and the information censored. The implication is that there was enough time for this to be the case. There are 1.5 months between the time estimations for patient zero and the publishing to WHO. Their attitude afterwards is consistent with an intent to control the narrative and opacity, beyond public health interest. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51364382 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51364382
      - billfruit 7y ago
        Willful or malicious suppression is only a theory as of now, with hardly any indication to back it up. This kind of insinuations stemming from a vacuous sense of moral superiority isn't helping us tide over this crisis. That one perceives something to be apparently consistent with any particular world view does not make that worldview the correct one. I doubt anyone can talk with moral certitude in such matter, when the discussion has devolved into unreasonable degree of polarization and hostility. All I can say is that, this isn't the time for another cold war.
acoderhasnoname 7y ago
How is this different from CDC banning Washington to do their own test??
jacksnipe 7y ago
Does anybody seriously believe that the US would have done a better job controlling the outbreak? Just look at how we did handle it when it made it over here!
gentleman11 7y ago
Lousy privacy policy on that site. Is there a better link?
- neonate 7y ago
  https://archive.md/xOKiu https://archive.md/xOKiu
MaupitiBlue 7y ago
There needs to be a discussion about how China is going to compensate the world for covid19. Given the thousands of lives lost and billions of lives disrupted, it seems unfair and unwise to let the source of the loss escape shouldering the cost.
- FpUser 7y ago
  Somebody is trying to open Pandora's Box here. Who is to decide what deserves compensation and who is going to enforce it? List of various grievances countries have against each other must be enormous.
- dang 7y ago
  We've banned this account for using HN for flamewar and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
dang 7y ago
All: please do not post nationalistic or ideological flamewar comments to HN. Commenters doing this have ruined this thread, and more of it would ruin the site. We won't let that happen, a.k.a. we ban accounts that do this, so please stop now and don't start again. If you want to bash each other's countries, tribes, parties, and ideologies, there are other places on the internet. This place is for curious, thoughtful conversation. That's what the majority of the community comes here for, and HN being a public forum does not entitle you to wreck it for them. The commons is delicate. Posting is a privilege. Using this place as a battlefield will lose you that privilege. Normally we'd bury any thread this wretched, but I'm leaving this one up in the hope that people will learn from the examples below. Viruses are not the only thing that's spreading right now. If you're commenting here, you are responsible for containing your share of the stress, fear, and rage of the moment, and finding capacity for curiosity in yourself—which includes respect for other commenters. If you can't do that, that's understandable and fine, but then please self-isolate until you can. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- qqn 7y ago
  Thanks for keeping things civil, dang.
- raphlinus 7y ago
  I've spent a fair amount of time on HN (especially yesterday) trying to respond to threads with verifiable facts and evidence, and as positive tone as I could muster even when responding to people with a very argumentative tone. I would like to think that was helpful, and was disheartened to see such a degradation in the quality of discourse today. Thanks dang for your doing your part to make things better, and I implore readers of the site to do your best to spread facts not misinformation, and engage in constructive conversation.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    welcome to the land of authority and threat
- president 7y ago
dathinab 7y ago
One think which should not be forgotten when interpreting this article is, that while Chine is often displayed as this large united country. The different regions in China still have quite a bit of independent governance, all below the central governance but not always acting in the best wiches of it. So you should not conclude "china tried to hide it" but a "sub-goverment in china tried to hide it even _even from china central government". Maybe even mainly from china central government. But what makes me worried is how china tends to always shift blame of their mess-ups on western countries and tends to display them (especial the USA) as that "evil" states which constantly wants to harm them. This, weather intentionally or accidentally, is setting the ground work for a far reaching economical and military escalation: I.e. for a war with strong racist tendencies. This can long term be far more dangerous then the SARS-Cov-2 virus or climate change as it could me a fully escalated third world war. EDIT: Be aware that some other comments imply that the context is quite different then show in the article and china might have acted very responsible.
genzoman 7y ago
There needs to be a great deal of introspection in the coming months. About what cultural practices are allowed to continue, and which are not. We need to have solutions for people that rely on dangerous ways of securing food an alternate method that's safer for everyone. We need to look closely at resource utilization and ask ourselves if we need to spend X amount of space/water for Y product, just because previously we have done so. We need to consume less, travel less, be more responsible.
transfire 7y ago
Is there evidence this strain of SARS was enginered in the lab, and it accidentally escaped? That seems the only reason that makes sense for trying to destroy evidence.
yibg 7y ago
It’s concerning how polarized any thread about China becomes. Normally rational calm people expressing extreme views (eg punishing innocent family members as deterrent). I wasn’t old enough at the time but I imagine this is what thing felt like during the Cold War. Why must we always have a foreign enemy? Be it soviets, muslims, mexicans or now China.
- dang 7y ago
  It's human nature, and gets worse with fear. Self-work can to some extent counteract it, for example by seeing in oneself what one decries in others.
  - yibg 7y ago
    It is. It’s perhaps also the part of us that if we can change could do the world the most good. Also seems a lot of folks takes a stance on China and view anything they do through that lens only. Those that are anti China seems unable to find anything China does to be positive. Similarly those that defend China seems unable to criticize China at all. Because of these default positions take, more nuanced discussions become ideological ones.
- loyukfai 7y ago
  My feeling is that it's more often than not the norm, society-wide speaking. However, at places like HN, usually people and discussions are more rational and fact-based. I've seen this happening in other circumstances and on other topics, that people who are educated and respected becoming mindless drones, or loss a significant portion of their reasoning ability and rationality whenever a certain note is played. Sometimes decency is lost too. But then, I expect better on HN and I'm glad the moderator(s?) is doing something about it. Cheers.
  - yibg 7y ago
    Agreed, and I too expected better from the HN crowd. Also agreed the moderators here are doing a great job. I don't know what the solution is. Maybe we should all strive to understand the other side better instead of casting quick judgement. Environmental and other issues aside, perhaps this is one of the benefits of the recent increase (not counting the current issue with COVID19) of global travel and tourism.
bookofjoe 7y ago
https://archive.md/xOKiu https://archive.md/xOKiu
11thEarlOfMar 7y ago
If all nations sequence the genes from their Corona virus patients, and the mapping points all cases back to China[0], China can do the same internally (if they haven't yet) and trace all the way back to patient 0. Will that happen? [0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/genetic-sequencing-and-online-software-tools-track-caronaviruss-path https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/ge...
- qtplatypus 7y ago
  Is there any benefit to tracing back to patient 0? I though that was just a movie thing.
michaelyoshika 7y ago
I’m an Asian American. And if I were attacked by any of these racist terrorist in the next few days, remember your spreading of calling it Chinese Virus contributes to the attack. Don’t pretend calling yourselves hackers make you any different from the racists in Reddits.
- saber6 7y ago
  Yeah I know victimhood is popular these days but dial it down a few levels. No one is going to attack you. Fueling generalized hyperbole, on both sides, is stupid. If anything, people will avoid you if they really think you "have something".
- knolax 7y ago
  To the dead comment below, it's already happened. https://nypost.com/2020/03/10/unhinged-woman-slugs-asian-lady-for-not-wearing-coronavirus-mask/ https://nypost.com/2020/03/10/unhinged-woman-slugs-asian-lad... https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/uk/coronavirus-racist-attack-police-intl-scli-gbr/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/uk/coronavirus-racist-attack-...
logfromblammo 7y ago
Given the properties of the virus--droplet aerosol borne, long incubation period, asymptomatic contagion, high infection rate, many asymptomatic carriers--I don't think there is any reasonable (or unreasonable) government policy that would have kept it from becoming a global pandemic. Better containment would have given countries some extra time to bring any mothballed reserve healthcare capacity to ready status, but I think this was essentially unpreventable. Absent any evidence of actual intent to spread a virulent disease worldwide, other countries don't really have any grounds to be angry at China, just for having 1/5 of all possible first-infected people, and getting the unlucky draw this time. This one likely came from one bat contacting one human in Wuhan. The next one could come from Chennai, or Kinshasa, or Lagos, or London, or Dubai, or Chicago--any place that has humans living in it. Unfortunately, scapegoat culture exists worldwide. Bad news historically has had an abysmal track record with respect to retaliation against messengers, whistle-blowers, and bystanders. As long as someone can get punished for a disaster happening on their watch, the containable screw-ups will continue to be covered up. If the cover-up fails, the person organizing it probably would have been punished anyway. Did someone in China attempt a cover-up? Maybe. Is that all of China's fault, as a nation? Only insofar as China's government, like many other governments with worldwide political influence, has a secrecy culture within it that punishes uncontrolled release of information that is damaging, or even just embarrassing, to the state. Let's throw this revelation onto the pile for the post-mortem analysis, after the pandemic threat has lessened, to learn a lesson from it. That will likely take the form of a UN resolution, that will probably be vetoed. None of the major powers will want to reduce their ability to crack down on leakers and whistle-blowers. There is no solution I can formulate now that is compatible with large nationalistic governments existing on this planet.
- loyukfai 7y ago
  >This one likely came from one bat contacting one human in Wuhan. AFAIK, most researchers believe that there is an intermediate between the virus-carrying bat and patient zero. Also, this is not the first time the wild animal market is suspected being the place the crossover happened. This one sounds strikingly similar to the 2003 SARS. >Did someone in China attempt a cover-up? Maybe. Is that all of China's fault, as a nation? Only insofar as China's government, like many other governments with worldwide political influence, has a secrecy culture within it that punishes uncontrolled release of information that is damaging, or even just embarrassing, to the state. In western societies, there is the concept of free press, which may alleviate this issue. Cheers.
aldoushuxley001 7y ago
There's a lot of valid discussion to be had about this, but which is impossible on this website. HN isn't meant for in-depth discussions, it's simply a very poor platform for such a thing. Though I still love HN; it has its place.
exdsq 7y ago
Meta: I have to say some of these comments aren’t deserving of a ban... Mods should relook at this thread when the smoke clears and reassess. It’s a heated topic.
- aww_dang 7y ago
  I've found that it is basically impossible to have a conversation about China here.
  - exdsq 7y ago
    Have you named your account after the moderator who was banning everyone or just a coincidence? The account is old enough that it can't be from yesterdays ban-fest like I first thought :P But yeah, I agree. It's an issue with having an international site and so much fake news/worry - people are heared and take things way too personally to have a decent discussion. Although if you think it's bad here, don't check out r/china_flu!
    - aww_dang 7y ago
      Let's just say that this isn't my first rodeo. r/Sino is another one. Anyways I'm glad to know not everyone has gone fully hysterical. Back to your original point, I think we should be capable of handling disagreements as adults. Banishment of mentioning things that offend others, idk where that ends.
qbaqbaqba 7y ago
Clickbait title?
Out_of_Characte 7y ago
I'm apalled by moderators banning people in this thread for "nationalistic attacks" I get the rules and values on HN but if China's inability to stop this virus is literally the worst thing to happen to this world since the SPANISH INFLUENCA then why can't I just call it like it is? criticising my own governement is done on a daily basis but is it now off limits to say that the CCP is the worst governing body I have seen in a country to date? I hope the CCP gets what it deserves.
- muyuu 7y ago
  The only thing that the Spanish did with the influenza was to study it first, because countries involved in the conflict wouldn't reveal they were hit by an epidemic.
stevespang 7y ago
I guess all these staff members are now sitting in Chinese prisons: https://www.caixinglobal.com/about-caixin/ https://www.caixinglobal.com/about-caixin/

354 points by zeveb 7y ago

It is interesting to think about how such a counterproductive attitude could develop. I imagine that the Party saw a problem, suppressed some people who were impacted by it, and saw the problem go away (at least for them). The they saw another problem, suppressed some people, and saw that problem go away too. After doing this for several decades, their default reflex upon seeing a problem was to suppress whoever was complaining about it. This strategy worked for small problems that would stay about the same size over time, because they could tell the sufferers to suck it up and at most a few people would become discontent. Eventually the strategy became a habit, and the habit became an integral cultural component of their way of governing. Then, one day, they saw a problem, suppressed some people... and discovered that the small problem would not stay small and suppressible after all.

kangnkodos 7y ago
This is pure speculation without one spec of proof: My guess is that the regional government covered up the problem. But once the national disease authorities learned of the issue, they did the right thing because of their experience with diseases over the last decade. I can't see the whole article. It might have some information which supports or refutes my guess. --- Edit. From the full article: "on January 3, the National Health Commission, China’s top medical authority, issued its own gagging orders"
- whatshisface 7y ago
  It is not really possible for outsiders to tell how orders are being moved around within the party mechanism. China's message is that the regional government is at fault, but that's what they always say when there is an expression of discontent among their people. It is not "kosher" for the central government to take the blame for anything, so you can never really believe it when someone else takes the blame. Maybe the CIA knows, but anyone who isn't tapping internal communications is not likely to get beyond speculation. In any case, a culture of honesty has to start at the top, and it is likely that the local government "knew what not to report." There are many situations where the claim that no official report was given to the central government would be true, while at the same time the central government played a role in the suppression. So as for speculation, I would say that there are many possibilities where the central government had a role to play in the suppression (even if it was played over years before), but only one possibility where the local authority went off and did something totally out of line. Edit: >The laboratory findings were relayed to officials in Beijing at the Centre for Disease Control (CDC). The information should have alerted national health chiefs to a looming crisis, but on January 3, the National Health Commission, China’s top medical authority, issued its own gagging orders. Laboratories were told not to release any information and to hand over or destroy the samples. Well, it looks like the local government didn't know what not to report after all. (Thanks to makomk's comment for pointing this out.)
  - petre 7y ago
    A fish rots from the head down after all.
- makomk 7y ago
  According to the article, this came from the top: the national medical authorities were directly telling the labs to destroy the samples and keep it a secret.
rapphil 7y ago
This behavior reminds me of what happened with the Chernobyl power plant.
- petre 7y ago
  The fall of the USSR is attributed in part to the Chernobyl accident in Mikhail Gorbachev's memoirs. I'm not saying the CCP's days are numbered, but maybe, just maybe they will live in interesting times.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Of course their days are numbered, no regime lasts forever.
  - gdubs 7y ago
    Midway through HBO’s Chernobyl it struck me: this was the start of the fall of the USSR. I guess that’s obvious, but the dominant narrative growing up was that the US outspent them militarily and it bankrupted them. But it was so eloquently shown in the miniseries that it was really about the facade coming down — the illusion of the all-knowing regime crumbling into that vast, hellish pit at the center of the reactor.
    - petre 7y ago
      You could watch Adam Curtis' HyperNormalisation documentary for further insight into this. It's about the current political elite but comoares the current situation with the one in the USSR before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
    - dathinab 7y ago
      Another think the US likes to look at differently: US: Marchal plan was self-less help. Reality: Marchal plan was mostly self-help, preventing a economical collaps of the US and securing strong longterm influence in the EU/Germany to make sure the EU/Germany won't side with communism in the future. Also allowing them "secure/safe/accepted" military presence in the EU/Germany "just on the border to their enemy". Etc. (Don't get me wrong. It was still awesome and I'm still grateful. Just don't go around stating the EU/Germany owns the USA and should do thinks which would harm itself to support the USA, especially given that currently the US is slightly falling from grace.).
LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
You are spot on. Now realize that all you read about china in the press, is created by this strategy. The green turn around, everything. And our press copys blindly from state media news outlets and organizations that have been corrupted with soft power. Meanwhile on the ground, the world begs to differ. The west aint perfect either (Julian Assange, Snowden), but at least dissent is able to reach the ears of the public, before beeing silenced. And the government wishful thinking aloud is discussed as the foolishness it is.
billfruit 7y ago
There seems to be much misinformation, as per one translation of sources, the Chinese CDC only asked that the samples which are kept in unsecured conditions/facilities be destroyed.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  The way things work in governments around the world, that detail doesn't really tell us anything. The interpretation of "unsecured condition/facility" would be completely up to what the local government thought the central government was implying.
  - billfruit 7y ago
    OTOH preventing unsecured facilities from holding such samples seems a valid thing to do. The point the being the highly charged political divide on this issue makes it impossible to trust sources on either side of this and similar matters.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      Well, we do know that the local government was suppressing things, because both sides claim that.

jmkd 7y ago

Paywall-free http://archive.md/xOKiu http://archive.md/xOKiu

holyavengerone 7y ago
Dead link :(
- exikyut 7y ago
  It works for me. How's it failing on your end?
  - kgc 7y ago
    DNS resolution error. Seems blocked at DNS level.
    - doomjunky 7y ago
      https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/ https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/

inscionent 7y ago

Where is the proof? The Times claims reporting by Caixin Global. I see no stories by Caixin that confirm this.

ebg13 7y ago
Do you mean this one? https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-signs-of-a-sars-like-virus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-101521745.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-s...
- inscionent 7y ago
  Thanks. Heaven forbid the times from cross linking to references.

ceedan 7y ago

China's monthly infectious disease report numbers had 1.71m cases of infectious disease in December 2019, compared to only like ~700k in December 2018. Interestingly the number of deaths from infectious disease declined in December 2019 vs 2018...

ajross 7y ago
Cite for that? While the PRC trying to suppress evidence of an outbreak is totally plausible, a 1M undercount of COVID-19 cases in one month just doesn't match the data on the ground. Something like that would have run rampant across asia by now. Where are they hiding all the bodies? Sorry, but this sounds like a mixed up fact, or a conspiracy rumor.
- ceedan 7y ago
  Dec 2017 - 700k - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136933793.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136933793.htm Dec 2018 - 712k - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/27/c_137778435.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/27/c_137778435.htm Dec 2019 - 1.71m - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/01/c_138748020.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-02/01/c_138748020.htm
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- marknutter 7y ago
  There may not be bodies to "hide" because the mortality rate is far lower than what is being reported right now.
  - ajross 7y ago
    Then how does that square with the data from the west, which broadly confirms the CFR China reported originally? Why are Italians dying like flies to this thing the Chinese were able to hide? This "The CFR is much lower!" thing is rapidly becoming a conspiracy-level fallacy... It's probably true that there are a bunch of unmeasured cases (a reasonable study yesterday guessed at a 6x undercount) and that the CFR is currently overstated because of sampling problems with test availability. It is absolutely not possible that there were a million cases in Hubei in december. Not from this disease. Come on, folks.

wwarner 7y ago

I'd be much more interested in what credible Chinese sources know about the disease and its epidemiology. Much of the reporting on the Chinese response has been overtly xenophobic and added to the confusion at just the moment we needed more clarity.

whatshisface 7y ago
It's not reported on but most of or knowledge about th course the disease takes comes from Chinese studies. Some Italian ones may be out there.
ng12 7y ago
It's hard to feel bad for a country that jails doctors for telling their colleagues about a new viral contagion.
- billfruit 7y ago
  He was neither arrested nor jailed. Speaks the amount of misinformation going around.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- anoncake 7y ago
  It's a lot easier to feel bad for its inhabitants.
- dang 7y ago
  We ban accounts that post like this. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606977 and don't do it again.
enaaem 7y ago
There are no credible sources in China, since there is no free press. Information and narrative is carefully controlled by the party through: State controlled media The great firewall of China. Most of the internet is blocked, including Facebook, Twitter and HN. Monitoring and censoring of all social media For alternative news we are depended on rogue reporters, whose credibility is tragically also unknown.

btilly 7y ago

I am generally against the death penalty. I am OK with it in this case. And for having all relatives of the people who were involved in making this decision being tattooed with signs saying things like, "My uncle's coverup caused COVID-19 to go worldwide." And for having all Chinese officials to have regular reminders that this is the punishment for covering up health crises. Penalizing family members for life is admittedly unfair. However Chinese society places a premium on the importance of family. And we want a penalty that will deter officials. I cannot think of a better deterrent in that society than knowing that their wives, children, siblings and parents will forever bear the mark of shame should they screw up.

jacquesm 7y ago
Ben, this is absolutely beneath you. Collective punishment went the way of the Dodo long ago, and rightly so.
- btilly 7y ago
  Indeed. Collective punishment is prohibited in armed conflict by article 33 of the Geneva conflict, from 1947. Degradation as punishment was prohibited by International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in the mid-1960s. There is a taboo against it for good reason. However once projected body counts of the results of someone's actions are measured in the tens of millions, and the same family members would have been expected to be beneficiaries of the person's intended actions, what punishment would be proportional to the consequences? I'm OK with abandoning normal taboos if the suffering of a handful prevents a repetition of this kind of event. And let's be clear. This is far from the first time that local coverups by Chinese officials have put the whole world's health at risk. (The most extreme example being the anemic first response to SARS.) And it is extremely unlikely to be the last time that Chinese officials will be in a position to be tempted to try coverups in the future. In a society and country that already accepts the death penalty as normal, what would YOU suggest to be sure that those future officials are deterred from even TRYING to gamble with the lives of the world? Yes. What I proposed was shocking. It was supposed to be. It is unpopular. This is again not a surprise. But do you have a better solution?
7y ago

Leary 7y ago

Here's the real article: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-of-the-coronavirus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-in-china https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/how-early-signs-...

inscionent 7y ago
Thank you.
dang 7y ago
Normally we'd at least consider swapping the URL, but given how awfully this thread went, that would be too much loss of context.
holyavengerone 7y ago
Thanks a ton!!

boplicity 7y ago

Remember Li Wenliang. We warned his fellow doctors about the situation, in December. The police punished him for this. He later died of the disease. We are all suffering because an authoritarian government suppressed the good intentions of its citizens. The Chinese Government is squarely to blame for this situation. Could it have been prevented if they had acted responsibly? I don't know – but there is a strong chance that the answer is yes. We'll never know, however, because that is not the path they took.

vesinisa 7y ago
OTOH the same authoritarian government quarantined a city the size of New York and built field hospitals for thousands of people on very short notice when the situation truly got out of hand.
- madengr 7y ago
  Killed 20 million too in the great revolution.
  - tomrod 7y ago
    This was during the COVID-19 outbreak?
  - dang 7y ago
    Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. Also, would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments generally? We unbanned you awhile ago because your comments had improved, but they've backslidden. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  Sure, but they closed the barn gates after the horses had already bolted. Edit: Oof, the truth hurts don't it?
- BiasRegularizer 7y ago

lighttower 7y ago

The narrative in China right now is finding ways of externalizing the problem. One narrative either pushed intentionally or by fake news sources are blaming American soldiers that were in Wuhan for a military fitness competition. While it sounds crazy it's widely believed. The source works for government in Guangzhou.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
archivist1 7y ago
> The narrative in China right now... Because there's one narrative in China, folks, and this douchebag knows what it is. But seriously, don't buy what he's selling. The only narrative China needs right now is its victory lap. It's nearly stopped new cases. Xi visited Hebei/Wuhan. The comment above is wishful thinking of the highest order, and perfect projection. It's Western media and nincompoops like this clown who seem to need to play the "blame game" China got on with solving the problem. Now they're taking a victory lap and responding to requests to help overseas. The Chinese, if they are blaming anyone, are not blaming foreigners for this, they're blaming the Hebei provincial authorities for their initial mistakes in handling it. Because they've been successful at containing a virus in the largest country on Earth, they don't need to play the blame game. It's slow-to-act and complacement Western-style governments that are in desperate need of a finger of blame to point at anyone but themselves.
- wurst_case 7y ago
  Honestly, both of you need to provide sources to support your point of view.
  - jdmg94 7y ago
    China literally sent a team of medics to Italy to help with the virus: https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/13/world/europe/13reuters-health-coronavirus-italy-respirators.html https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/13/world/europe/13re...

archivist1 7y ago

Drop the China bashing. If we're going to criticize any government on this issue, we need to criticize all of them. Was there really any government without guilt or incompetence in their handling of this? Really nobody who in any way delayed taking steps, nobody who in any way sat on information, nobody who in any way instructed a certain type of scale of coverage in an attempt to minimize panic? Let those without sin cast the first stone. But actually, I think the "blame game" is bullshit. Everyone should just be like, "Holy crap, this virus doesn't care about what passport you have, we all need to just work together on this." Good to see people contesting the blame narrative here, but better if we didn't promote this news at all. This is a highly technical site, surely there's a chance to share articles about studies, algorithms, ways data scientists/programmers/bioinformaticians can get involved, pool resources, donate cloud time, etc.

marknutter 7y ago
Ok, let's call it CPC bashing then, if that makes you feel better. What they have done during this whole debacle is despicable, and their attempts to push the conspiracy theory that the virus came from the US Military is just the icing on the cake.
- archivist1 7y ago
  Let's call it "Westerners blaming China to feel better, while they all get the virus anyway". Seems to be Western-style policy in a nutshell right now. If you call saving millions of Chinese people despicable, it sounds like you're to be despised. The cake isn't cooked yet, but Western governments are already eager to play the blame game, while China got on with getting results. Nearly zero new cases. Contained to Hebei. You've been reading fake news... and worse, believing it. They're not pushing a conspiracy theory. They're taking a victory lap. The comments about it being a bio weapon are from the FM, who is just volleying back Pompeo's comment about it being the "China virus". That's all it is. Tit for tat. If you believe everyone in China is obsessed with blaming the US for the virus origins, or, worse, that Chinese people believe it's a bioweapon, you're wrong, sorry. They contained a crazy new pathogen in the biggest country on Earth, they don't need to play the blame game, and domestically their media is taking a victory lap. It's just revealing of Western incompetence, and insecurity that Western media is fanning these blaming narratives. If you want to make me feel better, I thank you. Start by admitting your pro-Western propoganda does not tell you what's really happening in China.

infinity0 7y ago

To be fair, western authorities had an even longer amount of time before the virus spread to their countries, and are doing about as well or slightly worse than the Chinese authorities did even given this initial suppression.

gvjddbnvdrbv 7y ago
We are doing far worse.
- spookthesunset 7y ago
  In what way? You do realize that taking dramatic measures “just to be safe” has severe consequences of its own right? Our supply chain will break down. People will kill them selves from this lockdown. Addicts will relapse. People will fall into depression. Nothing good. It is a very tight space to thread the needle—- overreact and do massive damage to our economy and physical and mental health. Too little and we overwhelm our medical system and more people die from the virus needlessly. It is very delicate balance. Add in 27/7 media of all forms plus intense political pressure to “do something!!!! “ and here we are. I don’t envy anybody in my regional government having to make this call. Ps: people downvoting this and other comments like it make my point. It is currently not okay to question our current actions. There is massive social and political pressure to move toward heavy handed measures... we should be allowed to be critical or question things. Groupthink is not a good thing.
  - jfkebwjsbx 7y ago
    So now it is groupthink? Curious. I was being downvoted to hell a month ago when I was telling people we should enable measures. You can definitely do things like: • stop all tourist and non-essential travel, giving airlines the option to freeze their accounts • enable work from home for all public employees • force private companies to do so too for jobs that can be • close all educational institutions and let them give lessons remotely if they want • ban non-work related gatherings • ramp up production of masks and other basic stuff • ban people from buying too much of 1 given item per day for even 1 year if necessary, without destroying the economy. That alone would have flattened the curve so much it is not even funny.

alloai 7y ago

I just searched the version in Chinese. This is the google translated version : "“” When the severity of the virus is unknown, many companies have been commissioned by different hospitals to perform sequencing. After the National Centers for Disease Control received the report, they ordered all units without safety qualifications to destroy all virus samples. Less than two weeks later, the full virus sequencing results were made available to the world. "“” I found that it's deplorable that so many white politicians and media practitioners lack professionalism and wisdom that caused so much severe spread around the world. Look at South Korean, it should be served as manual for pandemic crisis resolutions.

tinza123 7y ago
This. The misleading title seems to point to a completely different conclusion deliberately.
dathinab 7y ago
If this is the case than china acted fully responsible. _And any western country would have acted the same_. Especially it wouldn't mean any research result was destroyed just strands of the virus kept in places where it's not safe to keep them. This would be really sad that a media outed completely turned around the facts to put blame on China... I mean let's be honest if it would have started in the USA (like ironically the Spanish flue did, even through it had Spanish in it's name) then I'm pretty sure the results would have been far worse then they are now.
dang 7y ago
It's good that you're attempting to provide factual information. But it's bad that you're adding flamebait like "so many white politicians and media practitioners". Please keep doing the first and stop doing the second. That sentence is a specimen of the same pathogen you're deploring. Your comment would be just fine without it. For more explanation, see these links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606977 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20nationalis&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

spectramax 7y ago

Liberal societies around the world are afraid of making strong statements and criticism of the way China handled this outbreak. The CCP is separate from the Chinese people and it has created an aura of defiance, callous behavior and intolerance for truth that collides with their image. When someone says "Fuck the CCP", it should not be met with liberal racist card - this is not racism, but criticism of the goverment and IMO the CCP needs to be criticized, dismantled and revolted against by the Chinese themselves. This is starting to happen but on a very small scale after the Coronavirus mishandling. It is very much productive to play the "blame game" because ultimately, we want the Chinese government to shutdown these wet markets, allow free speech of their citizens.

dathinab 7y ago
Uhm, the CCP in how it acts wrt. indoctrination is acting quite racistic them self (doesn't matter that that might be by accident). So criticizing or even denouncing it can't really be called acting racistic. Well except if it's _obvious that you act that way because of racistic ideas instead of criticism_ . Which might very well be the case for some people. So if given out of context the sentence might be racistic or might not be racistic. Also depending on your culture it might be just a sign of strong annoyance and just that. Or a very strong insult. Because of this, it's not really appropriate to say it either way as it seen as a insult in more cultures then ones at which it's just seen as a expression of annoyance/dislike. There are many other, better and more appropriate ways to criticize them. Like pointing out that they act racistic themself, like it did above. Also the initial bad response mainly comes from problems with local governance not the CCP. While the CCP controls the local goverment tightly it's also an open secet that the local government often actes in their interest first and only then in the interest of the whole country, especially if they believe they can get away with it. In the end the country is just to big with to many people to be efficiently governed. Maybe in the future with the help of more technology but not now. Through they are trying their best. Also lets be honest. Just consider how it would have went if that virus would have sourced in the USA. I mean after having a example which is both bad (initial response) and good (follow up response) the response in the USA (or the EU) is still sup-par. I would not have been surprised that if it would have been sourced in the USA then it would have spread even faster around the world including china. (Also as far as I have heard China did ban part of the food trading, additionally I have heard pretty racist thinks about how chines people where at fault because they eat everything etc. But the truth is they mostly eat pork. And the virus most likely was _not_ transmitted through food, through maybe still alive food, but then again still alive _normal_ food)

auiya 7y ago

Is it possible the researchers handling this virus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology simply screwed up and the release was accidental? That seems like the most plausible explanation to me, and especially given the institute's proximity to the seafood market on which the Chinese officials blamed the outbreak. I think it's pretty plain to see the story we've all been fed about the seafood market was a deflection attempt. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Wuhan has been working with bats and the various viruses they carry for many years... well before the BSL4 lab opened even. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17030870# https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17030870#

paulmd 7y ago
The suppression of researchers who sounded the alarm and forcing all the hospitals to return their samples certainly makes sense if you consider it as a "guilty reaction", after something they weren't supposed to be doing got loose. Or the government considers it embarrassing that the handlers were incompetent and this got loose. It could also just be the reaction of a government who is trying to downplay the virus and retain control of the narrative, however. Sequencing shows it's 96% similar to a wild strain of coronaviruses that has been previously studied in bats though, which argues against it being engineered.
- auiya 7y ago
  Yeah I agree, it's likely not an engineered virus at all. It was likely incompetence on the part of the handlers, and a subsequent cover up to try and reduce/deflect culpability.
  - souprock 7y ago
    Those are not opposites. An engineered virus can escape via incompetence. A non-engineered virus can be intentionally released. We can't prove that the virus was or was not engineered unless somebody finds a copyright message in the RNA. We do however know that the Wuhan lab had engineered similar viruses, slightly modifying bat coronaviruses so that they would be much more active against human cell lines.

billfruit 7y ago

China reported the disease to WHO on 31 Dec 2019. The article is short on first hand information and long on speculation. I think articles like this are only going to add to confusion and misinformation.

muyuu 7y ago
Extremely late. Already discovered by Chinese doctors in November, and they were silenced by the government.
- billfruit 7y ago
  It was isolated first on Dec 27th or thereabouts. Later retroactive investigation determined that some cases in late November was infact the same virus.
  - muyuu 7y ago
    That is assuming that the information in this article is incorrect. Could have been identified earlier and the information censored. The implication is that there was enough time for this to be the case. There are 1.5 months between the time estimations for patient zero and the publishing to WHO. Their attitude afterwards is consistent with an intent to control the narrative and opacity, beyond public health interest. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51364382 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51364382
    - billfruit 7y ago
      Willful or malicious suppression is only a theory as of now, with hardly any indication to back it up. This kind of insinuations stemming from a vacuous sense of moral superiority isn't helping us tide over this crisis. That one perceives something to be apparently consistent with any particular world view does not make that worldview the correct one. I doubt anyone can talk with moral certitude in such matter, when the discussion has devolved into unreasonable degree of polarization and hostility. All I can say is that, this isn't the time for another cold war.

acoderhasnoname 7y ago

How is this different from CDC banning Washington to do their own test??

jacksnipe 7y ago

Does anybody seriously believe that the US would have done a better job controlling the outbreak? Just look at how we did handle it when it made it over here!

gentleman11 7y ago

Lousy privacy policy on that site. Is there a better link?

neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/xOKiu https://archive.md/xOKiu

MaupitiBlue 7y ago

There needs to be a discussion about how China is going to compensate the world for covid19. Given the thousands of lives lost and billions of lives disrupted, it seems unfair and unwise to let the source of the loss escape shouldering the cost.

FpUser 7y ago
Somebody is trying to open Pandora's Box here. Who is to decide what deserves compensation and who is going to enforce it? List of various grievances countries have against each other must be enormous.
dang 7y ago
We've banned this account for using HN for flamewar and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

dang 7y ago

All: please do not post nationalistic or ideological flamewar comments to HN. Commenters doing this have ruined this thread, and more of it would ruin the site. We won't let that happen, a.k.a. we ban accounts that do this, so please stop now and don't start again. If you want to bash each other's countries, tribes, parties, and ideologies, there are other places on the internet. This place is for curious, thoughtful conversation. That's what the majority of the community comes here for, and HN being a public forum does not entitle you to wreck it for them. The commons is delicate. Posting is a privilege. Using this place as a battlefield will lose you that privilege. Normally we'd bury any thread this wretched, but I'm leaving this one up in the hope that people will learn from the examples below. Viruses are not the only thing that's spreading right now. If you're commenting here, you are responsible for containing your share of the stress, fear, and rage of the moment, and finding capacity for curiosity in yourself—which includes respect for other commenters. If you can't do that, that's understandable and fine, but then please self-isolate until you can. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

qqn 7y ago
Thanks for keeping things civil, dang.
raphlinus 7y ago
I've spent a fair amount of time on HN (especially yesterday) trying to respond to threads with verifiable facts and evidence, and as positive tone as I could muster even when responding to people with a very argumentative tone. I would like to think that was helpful, and was disheartened to see such a degradation in the quality of discourse today. Thanks dang for your doing your part to make things better, and I implore readers of the site to do your best to spread facts not misinformation, and engage in constructive conversation.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  welcome to the land of authority and threat
president 7y ago

dathinab 7y ago

One think which should not be forgotten when interpreting this article is, that while Chine is often displayed as this large united country. The different regions in China still have quite a bit of independent governance, all below the central governance but not always acting in the best wiches of it. So you should not conclude "china tried to hide it" but a "sub-goverment in china tried to hide it even _even from china central government". Maybe even mainly from china central government. But what makes me worried is how china tends to always shift blame of their mess-ups on western countries and tends to display them (especial the USA) as that "evil" states which constantly wants to harm them. This, weather intentionally or accidentally, is setting the ground work for a far reaching economical and military escalation: I.e. for a war with strong racist tendencies. This can long term be far more dangerous then the SARS-Cov-2 virus or climate change as it could me a fully escalated third world war. EDIT: Be aware that some other comments imply that the context is quite different then show in the article and china might have acted very responsible.

genzoman 7y ago

There needs to be a great deal of introspection in the coming months. About what cultural practices are allowed to continue, and which are not. We need to have solutions for people that rely on dangerous ways of securing food an alternate method that's safer for everyone. We need to look closely at resource utilization and ask ourselves if we need to spend X amount of space/water for Y product, just because previously we have done so. We need to consume less, travel less, be more responsible.

transfire 7y ago

Is there evidence this strain of SARS was enginered in the lab, and it accidentally escaped? That seems the only reason that makes sense for trying to destroy evidence.

yibg 7y ago

It’s concerning how polarized any thread about China becomes. Normally rational calm people expressing extreme views (eg punishing innocent family members as deterrent). I wasn’t old enough at the time but I imagine this is what thing felt like during the Cold War. Why must we always have a foreign enemy? Be it soviets, muslims, mexicans or now China.

dang 7y ago
It's human nature, and gets worse with fear. Self-work can to some extent counteract it, for example by seeing in oneself what one decries in others.
- yibg 7y ago
  It is. It’s perhaps also the part of us that if we can change could do the world the most good. Also seems a lot of folks takes a stance on China and view anything they do through that lens only. Those that are anti China seems unable to find anything China does to be positive. Similarly those that defend China seems unable to criticize China at all. Because of these default positions take, more nuanced discussions become ideological ones.
loyukfai 7y ago
My feeling is that it's more often than not the norm, society-wide speaking. However, at places like HN, usually people and discussions are more rational and fact-based. I've seen this happening in other circumstances and on other topics, that people who are educated and respected becoming mindless drones, or loss a significant portion of their reasoning ability and rationality whenever a certain note is played. Sometimes decency is lost too. But then, I expect better on HN and I'm glad the moderator(s?) is doing something about it. Cheers.
- yibg 7y ago
  Agreed, and I too expected better from the HN crowd. Also agreed the moderators here are doing a great job. I don't know what the solution is. Maybe we should all strive to understand the other side better instead of casting quick judgement. Environmental and other issues aside, perhaps this is one of the benefits of the recent increase (not counting the current issue with COVID19) of global travel and tourism.

bookofjoe 7y ago

https://archive.md/xOKiu https://archive.md/xOKiu

11thEarlOfMar 7y ago

If all nations sequence the genes from their Corona virus patients, and the mapping points all cases back to China[0], China can do the same internally (if they haven't yet) and trace all the way back to patient 0. Will that happen? [0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/genetic-sequencing-and-online-software-tools-track-caronaviruss-path https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/ge...

qtplatypus 7y ago
Is there any benefit to tracing back to patient 0? I though that was just a movie thing.

michaelyoshika 7y ago

I’m an Asian American. And if I were attacked by any of these racist terrorist in the next few days, remember your spreading of calling it Chinese Virus contributes to the attack. Don’t pretend calling yourselves hackers make you any different from the racists in Reddits.

saber6 7y ago
Yeah I know victimhood is popular these days but dial it down a few levels. No one is going to attack you. Fueling generalized hyperbole, on both sides, is stupid. If anything, people will avoid you if they really think you "have something".
knolax 7y ago
To the dead comment below, it's already happened. https://nypost.com/2020/03/10/unhinged-woman-slugs-asian-lady-for-not-wearing-coronavirus-mask/ https://nypost.com/2020/03/10/unhinged-woman-slugs-asian-lad... https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/uk/coronavirus-racist-attack-police-intl-scli-gbr/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/uk/coronavirus-racist-attack-...

logfromblammo 7y ago

Given the properties of the virus--droplet aerosol borne, long incubation period, asymptomatic contagion, high infection rate, many asymptomatic carriers--I don't think there is any reasonable (or unreasonable) government policy that would have kept it from becoming a global pandemic. Better containment would have given countries some extra time to bring any mothballed reserve healthcare capacity to ready status, but I think this was essentially unpreventable. Absent any evidence of actual intent to spread a virulent disease worldwide, other countries don't really have any grounds to be angry at China, just for having 1/5 of all possible first-infected people, and getting the unlucky draw this time. This one likely came from one bat contacting one human in Wuhan. The next one could come from Chennai, or Kinshasa, or Lagos, or London, or Dubai, or Chicago--any place that has humans living in it. Unfortunately, scapegoat culture exists worldwide. Bad news historically has had an abysmal track record with respect to retaliation against messengers, whistle-blowers, and bystanders. As long as someone can get punished for a disaster happening on their watch, the containable screw-ups will continue to be covered up. If the cover-up fails, the person organizing it probably would have been punished anyway. Did someone in China attempt a cover-up? Maybe. Is that all of China's fault, as a nation? Only insofar as China's government, like many other governments with worldwide political influence, has a secrecy culture within it that punishes uncontrolled release of information that is damaging, or even just embarrassing, to the state. Let's throw this revelation onto the pile for the post-mortem analysis, after the pandemic threat has lessened, to learn a lesson from it. That will likely take the form of a UN resolution, that will probably be vetoed. None of the major powers will want to reduce their ability to crack down on leakers and whistle-blowers. There is no solution I can formulate now that is compatible with large nationalistic governments existing on this planet.

loyukfai 7y ago
>This one likely came from one bat contacting one human in Wuhan. AFAIK, most researchers believe that there is an intermediate between the virus-carrying bat and patient zero. Also, this is not the first time the wild animal market is suspected being the place the crossover happened. This one sounds strikingly similar to the 2003 SARS. >Did someone in China attempt a cover-up? Maybe. Is that all of China's fault, as a nation? Only insofar as China's government, like many other governments with worldwide political influence, has a secrecy culture within it that punishes uncontrolled release of information that is damaging, or even just embarrassing, to the state. In western societies, there is the concept of free press, which may alleviate this issue. Cheers.

aldoushuxley001 7y ago

There's a lot of valid discussion to be had about this, but which is impossible on this website. HN isn't meant for in-depth discussions, it's simply a very poor platform for such a thing. Though I still love HN; it has its place.

exdsq 7y ago

Meta: I have to say some of these comments aren’t deserving of a ban... Mods should relook at this thread when the smoke clears and reassess. It’s a heated topic.

aww_dang 7y ago
I've found that it is basically impossible to have a conversation about China here.
- exdsq 7y ago
  Have you named your account after the moderator who was banning everyone or just a coincidence? The account is old enough that it can't be from yesterdays ban-fest like I first thought :P But yeah, I agree. It's an issue with having an international site and so much fake news/worry - people are heared and take things way too personally to have a decent discussion. Although if you think it's bad here, don't check out r/china_flu!
  - aww_dang 7y ago
    Let's just say that this isn't my first rodeo. r/Sino is another one. Anyways I'm glad to know not everyone has gone fully hysterical. Back to your original point, I think we should be capable of handling disagreements as adults. Banishment of mentioning things that offend others, idk where that ends.

qbaqbaqba 7y ago

Clickbait title?

Out_of_Characte 7y ago

I'm apalled by moderators banning people in this thread for "nationalistic attacks" I get the rules and values on HN but if China's inability to stop this virus is literally the worst thing to happen to this world since the SPANISH INFLUENCA then why can't I just call it like it is? criticising my own governement is done on a daily basis but is it now off limits to say that the CCP is the worst governing body I have seen in a country to date? I hope the CCP gets what it deserves.

muyuu 7y ago
The only thing that the Spanish did with the influenza was to study it first, because countries involved in the conflict wouldn't reveal they were hit by an epidemic.

stevespang 7y ago

I guess all these staff members are now sitting in Chinese prisons: https://www.caixinglobal.com/about-caixin/ https://www.caixinglobal.com/about-caixin/