4 ms·

China Hid Severity of Virus to Hoard Supplies: DHS Report

51 points by blondie9x 6y ago

IAmEveryone 6y ago
AP here is only reporting that there is a US government document saying as much. Which was conveniently leaked to them. Reading between the lines, this document seems to include a statistical analysis of Chinese trade patterns to conclude that its trade in medical supplies in January deviated from the past. The idea that China was buying more medical supplies in January seems entirely obvious to me, and I’m pretty sure I have seen previous reports of this, extending even beyond January. The Wuhan Lockdown happened on January 23rd. Do I believe that they were importing more medical equipment in the month where they locked down an entire providence due to the emergence of a new and deadly contagious disease? Yes. Does it take advanced statistics and p-values do convince me of that fact? No. But, of course, including a bit of stats in such a paper might also induce people to put more stock into its other claims, namely that buying such materials was a motivating factor to hide the extend of the disease. Or that China was hiding the extend of the disease in the first place. Here's the WHO's bulletin on the matter. This is based on information they were given by China in December. If you search any news, you'll also find reference to China briefing their US contacts on January 3rd, with similar information. The bulletin itself is from January 5th: https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-china/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unk... Quotes: On 31 December 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City Of the 44 cases reported, 11 are severely ill, while the remaining 33 patients are in stable condition. National authorities report that all patients are isolated and receiving treatment in Wuhan medical institutions. One hundred and twenty-one close contacts have been identified and are under medical observation; So they were hiding it, except they told WHO that they had severely ill patients which had been isolated? And that they were tracking >100 people that had been in contact with these patients, indicating the believe that the disease may be contagious?
- ehvatum 6y ago
  On January 14, Chinese central authorities knew that COVID-19 spread readily between people. They continued to tell the world the opposite, as reflected by the infamous WHO tweet. Also, the word you are looking for is not "extend" but "extent".
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    This is the exact tweet: January 14 by WHO “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China,” https://mobile.twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152?la... AP reports China knew on the 14th that the virus could spread amongst humans, didn’t publicize until January 20: https://apnews.com/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9 https://apnews.com/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9
    - JamesG124 6y ago
      Wuhan government publicly stated they found a possible case of h2h from husband to wife, on 1/15 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/wireStory/china-virus-spread-humans-68293043?__twitter_impression=true https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/wireStory/china-virus-spre...
    - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
      By 10 January, the WHO was already recommending precautions against droplet and contact transmission. In their 14 January press briefing, the WHO warned that human-to-human transmission was a possibility, given that both SARS and MERS are transmissible. Every competent public health agency around the world was fully aware of these warnings and recommendations. People pointing to the 14 January tweet that discusses "preliminary investigations" not finding "clear evidence" of human-to-human transmission, but not mentioning the WHO's other statements and recommendations from the same time, are just trying to shift blame.
  - IAmEveryone 6y ago
canada_dry 6y ago
60 Minutes Australia did an interesting report on Chinese companies that stockpiled and shipped supplies back to China at the onset of the pandemic. https://youtu.be/T3s6kcXi4pA?t=305 https://youtu.be/T3s6kcXi4pA?t=305
tibbydudeza 6y ago
Trying to blame China for the US govt ineptness and preparedness for this pandemic is a bit daft when you look at other countries who had much better outcomes with the same information. Logic will work for the MAGA crowd but some of us are more cynical after the lies peddled to justify the mess that was Iraq.
aaomidi 6y ago
I hate China more than the next person, but it's hilarious we're blaming China for our system that's fucked people over. Our economic system is not set up for natural issues like this. I would also like to propose another question. You know how we're spending a metric fuckton of money on the Military? What if this was, you know, actually a biological attack? Is this where all of our preparedness has come to show itself? What if this virus was actually manufactured to be even stronger than this? If we're not even able to prepare for a pandemic through spending this much money, maybe we shouldn't spend this much money on the military and spend more on social systems that would lessen the blow of such an attack.

51 points by blondie9x 6y ago

AP here is only reporting that there is a US government document saying as much. Which was conveniently leaked to them. Reading between the lines, this document seems to include a statistical analysis of Chinese trade patterns to conclude that its trade in medical supplies in January deviated from the past. The idea that China was buying more medical supplies in January seems entirely obvious to me, and I’m pretty sure I have seen previous reports of this, extending even beyond January. The Wuhan Lockdown happened on January 23rd. Do I believe that they were importing more medical equipment in the month where they locked down an entire providence due to the emergence of a new and deadly contagious disease? Yes. Does it take advanced statistics and p-values do convince me of that fact? No. But, of course, including a bit of stats in such a paper might also induce people to put more stock into its other claims, namely that buying such materials was a motivating factor to hide the extend of the disease. Or that China was hiding the extend of the disease in the first place. Here's the WHO's bulletin on the matter. This is based on information they were given by China in December. If you search any news, you'll also find reference to China briefing their US contacts on January 3rd, with similar information. The bulletin itself is from January 5th: https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-china/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unk... Quotes: On 31 December 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City Of the 44 cases reported, 11 are severely ill, while the remaining 33 patients are in stable condition. National authorities report that all patients are isolated and receiving treatment in Wuhan medical institutions. One hundred and twenty-one close contacts have been identified and are under medical observation; So they were hiding it, except they told WHO that they had severely ill patients which had been isolated? And that they were tracking >100 people that had been in contact with these patients, indicating the believe that the disease may be contagious?

ehvatum 6y ago
On January 14, Chinese central authorities knew that COVID-19 spread readily between people. They continued to tell the world the opposite, as reflected by the infamous WHO tweet. Also, the word you are looking for is not "extend" but "extent".
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  This is the exact tweet: January 14 by WHO “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China,” https://mobile.twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152?la... AP reports China knew on the 14th that the virus could spread amongst humans, didn’t publicize until January 20: https://apnews.com/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9 https://apnews.com/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9
  - JamesG124 6y ago
    Wuhan government publicly stated they found a possible case of h2h from husband to wife, on 1/15 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/wireStory/china-virus-spread-humans-68293043?__twitter_impression=true https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/wireStory/china-virus-spre...
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    By 10 January, the WHO was already recommending precautions against droplet and contact transmission. In their 14 January press briefing, the WHO warned that human-to-human transmission was a possibility, given that both SARS and MERS are transmissible. Every competent public health agency around the world was fully aware of these warnings and recommendations. People pointing to the 14 January tweet that discusses "preliminary investigations" not finding "clear evidence" of human-to-human transmission, but not mentioning the WHO's other statements and recommendations from the same time, are just trying to shift blame.
- IAmEveryone 6y ago

canada_dry 6y ago

60 Minutes Australia did an interesting report on Chinese companies that stockpiled and shipped supplies back to China at the onset of the pandemic. https://youtu.be/T3s6kcXi4pA?t=305 https://youtu.be/T3s6kcXi4pA?t=305

tibbydudeza 6y ago

Trying to blame China for the US govt ineptness and preparedness for this pandemic is a bit daft when you look at other countries who had much better outcomes with the same information. Logic will work for the MAGA crowd but some of us are more cynical after the lies peddled to justify the mess that was Iraq.

aaomidi 6y ago

I hate China more than the next person, but it's hilarious we're blaming China for our system that's fucked people over. Our economic system is not set up for natural issues like this. I would also like to propose another question. You know how we're spending a metric fuckton of money on the Military? What if this was, you know, actually a biological attack? Is this where all of our preparedness has come to show itself? What if this virus was actually manufactured to be even stronger than this? If we're not even able to prepare for a pandemic through spending this much money, maybe we shouldn't spend this much money on the military and spend more on social systems that would lessen the blow of such an attack.