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Is China Ground Zero for a Future Pandemic? (2017)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gdilla 7y agoShould China pay some sort of reparations? Maybe in the form of contributing to a WHO preparedness fund/initiative with stocking supplies that could be deployed faster next time? China needs to pay for their 1) lack of sanitary standards surrounding their markets and 2) their coverup which exacerbated the situation.
- misiti3780 7y agoThey could start by shutting down all of the wet markets.
- minxomat 7y agoThey've done that.
- Hates_ 7y agoI thought they have only banned the farming and consumption of wild animals? I can't find any reference to banning wet markets.
- Der_Einzige 7y agoThey haven't done it permanently yet though Edit: For the downvoters, here's evidence of a TEMPORARY ban https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-chinese-wet-market-photos-2020-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-chinese-we... Please refute me with evidence of a permanent ban. Otherwise, you're being counter productive
- marvel_boy 7y agoThis
- theseadroid 7y agoSo do we do this next time any new illness spread? what if it happened to a poor country? Is this going to be coded as an international law? If so why is the law retrospective? Considering your 1) lack of sanitary standards is more prevalent in poorer countries is the law discriminatory?
- tathougies 7y agoYes, if it turns out a poor country lied and imprisoned doctors attempting to disseminate facts, then yes, they ought to be punished internationally.. We shouldn't punish China for simply having the virus. That could happen to anyone. But lying about it on the world stage for months, imprisoning whistleblower doctors, etc is reprehensible behavior.
- geogra4 7y agoLinks to this?
- tathougies 7y agohttps://www.wsj.com/articles/how-it-all-started-chinas-early-coronavirus-missteps-11583508932?mod=e2tw https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-it-all-started-chinas-early... China misled WHO into thinking the virus wasn't contagious up until Jan 20. On Jan 14th, WHO (https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152) said the virus wasn't contagious on twitter. China arrested scientist whistleblowers. https://www.businessinsider.com/china-coronavirus-whistleblowers-speak-out-vanish-2020-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/china-coronavirus-whistleblo... To top it all off, China attempted to blame the united states for it. https://qz.com/1817736/china-fuels-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-blaming-us-army/ https://qz.com/1817736/china-fuels-coronavirus-conspiracy-th... The Atlantic has a thorough article as well. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trolling-world-and-avoiding-blame/608332/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/china-trol...
- ksk 7y ago
- teknologist 7y agoThe lack of sanitary standards in everyday life has always been shocking to me whenever I've visited China to be honest. People often spit on the streets and cough and sneeze without covering their faces, even in the big modern cities. Someone even vomited on my shoe in a subway station once and then just walked away without even acknowledging that they did it. I'm really not surprised that these diseases show a tendency to start in China. In Hong Kong and Taiwan it's rather different - hand sanitizer is readily available and people actually wash their hands after using the restroom, etc. Even in surrounding (and much poorer) South East Asian nations people seem to be much better at maintaining a better level of general hygiene.
- aziom23 7y agoDid the US pay reparations to essentially all the nations for the 1918 flu? This originated among cattle in Kansas, and killed 50 million people: more than WW1 and WW2 combined.
- dmilotz 7y agoDo you have sources for such a claim?
- lorenzfx 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Hypotheses_about_the_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Hypotheses_about_t...
- dmilotz 7y agoThe above claim that it started in Kansas is one hypothesis among many others. This is another hypothesis from the same wikipedia section: "In 1993, Claude Hannoun, the leading expert on the 1918 flu for the Pasteur Institute, asserted the former virus was likely to have come from China."
- onetimemanytime 7y agoCoverup, because every country has things that can cause problems for others. China should have used their resources to seal everything and everyone the minute they knew. I agree with Trump on this one, they should have stopped it there. Bats, civets were all linked to previous infections and we know bats have other viruses waiting for us
- geogra4 7y agoThey did and now there are no new cases from local transmission.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoI trust their statistics and words. Do you? But either way, now is too late. The entire world got it and tens of millions will de directly or indirectly.
- spinny 7y agoDo you have any proof of that or any way to confirm the data they provided? Some people seem to think that a country known for lying, murdering and disappearing whistleblowers suddenly is an example of transparency and honesty
- geogra4 7y agoSo do you trust statistics from America then?
- quicklime 7y agoA lot of countries did a poor job of the initial handling of the outbreak, which is why we're in this mess right now. If we're going to demand reparations from countries for a cover-up and exacerbating the situation, it shouldn't be limited to just China.
- twomoretime 7y agoIf China had been more forthcoming with the nature of the virus, instead of ramping up both internal and external censorship, perhaps the world would have been better prepared. Instead their KGB equivalent went into overdrive. Do you know that in addition to admonishing and disappearing doctors and scientists who dared to blow the whistle, at least one multimillionaire tycoon has been disappeared for criticizing the response? The CCP puts the CCP first, before both global and Chinese citizens. And before anyone accuses me of nationalism, the US has its own share of worldbuilding to answer for, and our response is also difficult to excuse as US intelligence was no doubt aware of the true danger, considering papers regarding R0 and lethality and such have been floating around since early January. Like credit, assign blame where it is due. The behavior of the CCP is not a reflection on the Chinese people.
- cadmuxe 7y agoPeople are blaming China didn't do proper job in the initial one month, but ignore what US did barely nothing in the following two months with knowing it's a dangerous virus. And also they think one organization can know everything and recognize a global Pandemic just with a few cases. Oh man, if this kind of decision maker existed, We should do whatever we can to bring him/her to the coding industry. We will have bug-free softwares with his/her insight. https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fl7m3z/the_first_coronavirus_case_in_the_us_and_south/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fl7m3z/the_fir...
- JPKab 7y agoThis is a straw man argument. Most Americans are angry at their own government's response to a catastrophe, AND angry at the CCP for creating the catastrophe. (No, not the virus. The catastrophe is the virus' spread when it was preventable.)
- overthemoon 7y agoI mean, this is basically sanctions, right? I guess I would prefer those in charge to weigh the value of holding people responsible vs the chaos that sanctions on China would bring.
- beamatronic 7y agoHow about this. Next time this happens, instantaneous travel and trade ban. Full stoppage.
- geogra4 7y agoChina moved heaven and earth to stop the virus from spreading. If anyone should pay reparations it's the US for breaking quarantine and spreading the virus when china told them not to.
- _6fmb 7y agoWHO has commended China for their transparency... your statement is the opposite of reality.
- andrenth 7y agoHow about reparations from the WHO, for telling countries not to close their borders for fear of “stigma”?
- ksk 7y agoI think that is a slippery slope. Once it was known, other countries did nothing to stop the spread either by allowing free travel rather than going into a lock-down mode. Each country put their economy ahead of the well-being of their citizens. The US is still allowing free travel between states knowing full well that its going to make it worse.
- DyslexicAtheist 7y agowhat makes these wet markets different to similar cases in Africa where "bush meat" is consumed? Is it just an equal risk in China as it is in Africa or is there something unique about China (e.g. climate, lack of oversight, central planning)? Or is it just the news cycle and that we choose focus on China right now since the recent bird flu and SARS being fresh in memory? whoever wrote this must have felt like a modern Cassandra.
- realityking 7y agoFrom my understanding China’s population density (it’s very urbanized at this point) and interconnection with global travel make it more dangerous.
- icsllaf 7y agoChina is much more internationally connected and densely populated than Africa is. Pretty much why the rate of international infection skyrocketed after the disease got to Italy. Africa also it's share of problems and diseases.See Ebola.
- beamatronic 7y ago“Wet market” is like combination slaughter house and grocery store where floor never dries from constantly hosing down fluids. It’s not sanitary.
- mc32 7y agoI wonder if this will be the final nail in the coffin for wet markets and in particular game markets, given this history. I mean not just in official proclamation but resulting in the complete disappearance even in rural backwaters.
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- HammockTester 7y agoWe can only hope so. Unfortunately animal agriculture as it currently exists is just as dangerous (e.g. chicken CAFOs breeding bird flu). IMO we need to rethink meat production altogether. Meat production needs to be environmentally conscious, health/epidemiologically conscious and at least minimally animal welfare conscious and the price of meat should reflect that all of that extra work is being done.
- atomi 7y agoYou are absolutely right. Viruses proliferate in large groups of animals in the conditions we keep them in. So much so that we routinely euthanize millions of animals to prevent viral outbreaks. Avian flu and swine flu both can mutate into global plagues. And we continue - business as usual.
- edouard-harris 7y agoThat is quite possible. I wouldn't be surprised if - once all this is over - wet markets are seen as having a similarly skewed risk profile as, e.g., 1st-to-3rd generation nuclear reactors. No problems most of the time; downside risk dominated by rare yet devastating black swans.
- Supermancho 7y ago> I wonder if this will be the final nail in the coffin for wet markets You can't stop it anytime soon. There will always be underground community wet markets. A high level engineer, that used to work for Disney, happens to be a close family friend (my brother's Godparent^). He was contracted out to work on the Ghost cities' transportation lines. As it's been documented, they were the planned destination for the forcible relocation of rural residents. At least, as much of the rural population as China thought they could move. In the test cases, the farmers just ended up reverting to american homeless-style survival, as they didn't stay in their sterile buildings for very long and ended up scavenging/defecating on the streets and trying to escape back to the jungle, as you might expect. After almost 2 years of working by commuting to-from China, one day he saw an accident where some workers got killed and he got the VERY strong sense that he might not be allowed to leave, due to his danger of leaking the story. He calmly finished out that month, came back home to the US and promptly told Disney he wasn't going back. Since it was insisted that the work continue, he stepped down. ^ This informs me, while it should just be a rumor to anyone else.
- meh2frdf 7y agoYes
- ng7j5d9 7y agoHooray! We can finally dispose of Betteridge's "Law"!
- guacamole4 7y agoChina's official stance is that virus was developed by CIA and brought to Wuhan by US military [1]. So they'll have to reopen wet markets or else be seen as admitting that the virus actually originated in one of them in China rather than in a CIA lab. [1] https://twitter.com/zlj517/status/1238111898828066823 https://twitter.com/zlj517/status/1238111898828066823
- btilly 7y agoPlease don't spread conspiracy theories without linking to a reliable source.
- MikeHolman 7y agoDefnitely not the official stance, but Lijian Zhao (China Spokesperson & Deputy Director General, Information Department, Foreign Ministry) tweeted "It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan." https://twitter.com/zlj517/status/1238111898828066823 https://twitter.com/zlj517/status/1238111898828066823
- btilly 7y agoYes. Highly placed individuals promote conspiracy theories. Given our President's past behavior on Twitter, we are in no position to criticize. However the official conclusion of China that I have seen matches the international community - this started in a wet market in China.
- knzhou 7y agoJust as Tom Cotton (Senator from Arkansas) declared on Fox news that it was a Chinese bioweapon. All governments have wingnuts.
- Natsu 7y agoI think it's clearly not a bioweapon, and there would be no benefit to China for releasing it, but it's exactly the sort of thing that lab was investigating, so part of me wonders if there wasn't a leak of a research sample. Even if it were so, I would never blame all Chinese people for it.
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- shaan1 7y agoIt's not about China. It could have happened anywhere in the world. It's about any authoritarian or communist regimes. It's about hiding the information from surfacing. More people should be speaking out about such regimes.
- throwaway5752 7y agoEveryone ought to be really aware, before trying to overascribe this to particular groups of people, that the US is nearing a massive problem from Chronic Wasting Disease which could be a 100% currently fatal human-to-human retransmissible prion. We are currently mismanaging to it, and given the environmental persistence and difficulties destroying prions, could put this to shame. The most recent H1N1 influenza (2009) which has been widely in the news originated in N. America (Mexico or US). The first "Spanish" flu H1N1 cases were in Kansas in 1917. China should deal with wet markets with wild game. They are a profoundly dangerous environment for zoonotic crossover. It a good bet there will be changes since China had such a close brush with collapse. Nobody should think this is unique to China since it's false and unhelpful.
- zachguo 7y agoThis is just a side effect of rapid urbanization. Progress in hygiene and education is not up to speed with the concentration of population. The next one will probably be from SE Asia or Africa.