6 ms·

Is there any way to independently confirm China's claims? AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists so that they have sole control over the truth.

by umvi 6y ago

wnevets 6y ago
Is there any way to independently confirm Florida or Texas' claims?
- drcongo 6y ago
  Not while the "president" bans independent journalists from asking questions.
  - michaelgiba 6y ago
    Thankfully you don't need to go through the president to get this information. Troves of independent, even international, journalists have written stories on COVID responses within US states, including TX and FL. It is wholly misleading to compare the claims of these two countries.
    - wnevets 6y ago
      > Thankfully you don't need to go through the president to get this information. Hospitals are sending their data directly to the white house bypassing the CDC. [1] https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/white-house-hospitals-bypass-cdc-report-covid-19-data-directly-hhs https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/white-house-hospitals-...
- jquery 6y ago
  Pretty sure journalists from around the world have free reign to examine any of Florida or Texas’s claims. Can you say the same about Wuhan?
  - michaelgiba 6y ago
    Why is this downvoted? This has been happening a lot recently on seemingly normal messages.
    - just-juan-post 6y ago
      Covid has created an atmosphere where certain questions are not allowed to be asked. Certain discussions are not allowed. Welcome to the coronavirus discussion on the Internet. Bring up how people are dying and it's terrible? Automatic upvotes. Attempt discussion about the tradeoffs of the lockdown (economy vs lives)? That person is stupid and uneducated and a Trump supporter - automatic downvotes. It's pointless to even attempt a discussion that isn't simply lamenting deaths. Don't waste your time like I have.
      - stef25 6y ago
        > Covid has created an atmosphere where certain questions are not allowed to be asked I find that unacceptable so let's talk. Long story short I think that the economy will pick up again once this all blows over and that whatever negative consequences there are from a lockdown are still better than hundreds of thousands of people dying. One person dying is objectively worse than one person going bankrupt, this is ethics 101. I realise now that I'm doing exactly what you were criticizing (lamenting deaths) but I'd really like to hear your counter argument.
        jquery 6y ago
        Define “blows over”. If covid appeared, today, with its current death rate (about 3x of the flu), there’s no way we would be taken the extraordinary measures that are being taken: shutting down schools, businesses, churches, and in general grossly violating constitutional rights with questionable efficacy. I see people saying “let’s wait for a vaccine” but what if a vaccine doesn’t appear for years? How many deaths of despair are worth it? How many domestic violence cases counterbalance one 70-year-old person dying (the average age of a covid death)? How many people going bankrupt is worth saving the life of a single person? What if I told you that going bankrupt is associated with increased likelihood of death? And so on... single-variate analysis of such a complex issue is doomed to fail, but that’s basically all I see.
xtony 6y ago
Maybe ask a friend who lives in China or a friend who has friends that live in China? They're also subject to fake news, but at least they can give you their experience of what daily life is like where they live. It's not like China is so locked down that it's impossible to communicate with their citizens.
- gruez 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201310
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    "If Chinese citizens are told by their government that covid is no longer a risk to the general population and that western media outlets are fear mongering to damage China, they will believe it regardless of the truth. The CCP is the truth in China." Chinese people are incapable of thinking for themselves and anything you personally hear from one should be disregarded as brainwashing. With an attitude like this, I see no hope for meaningful future cooperation. Everybody on board the cold war train.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- blacksmith_tb 6y ago
  But it may be unwise for them to say anything overly critical via electronic means. We'd almost need pen and paper (which might be eccentric enough to attract attention too).
  - chillacy 6y ago
    I asked an American friend over Signal about it, he confirmed that the lockdown was less severe in Beijing months ago while US cities were in peak shelter in place. But he also said that every single day somebody would call to check in. That level of surveillance wouldn't fly here (our contact tracers are far less effective than say South Korea's). China isn't North Korea. You can use VPN to access the broader internet. And if you have an American SIM card, all your traffic gets routed through the US so you can access the full internet (it's just painfully slow).
quercusgrisea 6y ago
That they've eradicated coronavirus in Wuhan? The photos are pretty self-evident. If there was a government cover-up and people were still getting sick then we wouldn't see people putting themselves at risk to go to a music festival. >AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists so that they have sole control over the truth. I'm not able to find a source to confirm that, but I do see some news articles from earlier this year abiut China revoking press credentials for journalists from 3 US news outlets. AFAICT from searching, journalists from other countries and news outlets are not affected.
- xboxnolifes 6y ago
  If there was a government cover-up and people were still getting sick then we wouldn't see people putting themselves at risk to go to a music festival. I disagree with the conclusion here by looking at what people are willing to do locally.
  - michaelgiba 6y ago
    > If there was a government cover-up and people were still getting sick then we wouldn't see people putting themselves at risk to go to a music festival. A tad misleading, if people cannot communicate publicly about people getting sick or hear this from media, why wouldn't they go to a music festival? They wouldn't know. Interested to hear your thoughts
    - xboxnolifes 6y ago
      I made a mistake and did not quote the line properly. The comment is not mine, but a quote from the poster I replied to.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Don't we have evidence from other countries that some people will, in fact, put themselves at risk when the virus is spreading? It's certainly not the Chinese government's official position that the virus is gone forever and everyone's safe now.
youdonotknowme 6y ago
My undergrad university is in Wuhan. I can personally confirm this since all my family and friends in China live almost like normal now. If I am being honest, I am disappointed and astonished to see how anti-intellectual, selfish, and conceited some Americans are. I do not like China's politics, which is one of the reasons that I do not go back. But I do not think U.S. should blame China for being in such a bad situation. More disappointedly, I do not see it getting better... I do not believe U.S. can contain it without vaccine.
jdietrich 6y ago
>AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists so that they have sole control over the truth. You'd be mistaken. Some American correspondents have had their visas revoked and Tibet and Xianjing are effectively off-limits, but there are huge numbers of foreign journalists working in China.
arslonga 6y ago
Here's Peter Hessler in the New Yorker on life in China over the past few months: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-controlled-the-coronavirus https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-cont... Basically it seems they do have things well under control.
- codemk8 6y ago
  Lol I posted the same link 2 mins after u
codemk8 6y ago
A recent report from New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-controlled-the-coronavirus https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-cont...
rsynnott 6y ago
> AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists No, that's not correct. It would be hard to verify, of course, and there could well be some unreported cases, but it's simply not plausible that China's seeing a US scale outbreak, or even an EU-scale one, without anyone noticing.

Is there any way to independently confirm China's claims? AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists so that they have sole control over the truth.

by umvi 6y ago

Is there any way to independently confirm China's claims? AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists so that they have sole control over the truth.

wnevets 6y ago

Is there any way to independently confirm Florida or Texas' claims?

drcongo 6y ago
Not while the "president" bans independent journalists from asking questions.
- michaelgiba 6y ago
  Thankfully you don't need to go through the president to get this information. Troves of independent, even international, journalists have written stories on COVID responses within US states, including TX and FL. It is wholly misleading to compare the claims of these two countries.
  - wnevets 6y ago
    > Thankfully you don't need to go through the president to get this information. Hospitals are sending their data directly to the white house bypassing the CDC. [1] https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/white-house-hospitals-bypass-cdc-report-covid-19-data-directly-hhs https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/white-house-hospitals-...
jquery 6y ago
Pretty sure journalists from around the world have free reign to examine any of Florida or Texas’s claims. Can you say the same about Wuhan?
- michaelgiba 6y ago
  Why is this downvoted? This has been happening a lot recently on seemingly normal messages.
  - just-juan-post 6y ago
    Covid has created an atmosphere where certain questions are not allowed to be asked. Certain discussions are not allowed. Welcome to the coronavirus discussion on the Internet. Bring up how people are dying and it's terrible? Automatic upvotes. Attempt discussion about the tradeoffs of the lockdown (economy vs lives)? That person is stupid and uneducated and a Trump supporter - automatic downvotes. It's pointless to even attempt a discussion that isn't simply lamenting deaths. Don't waste your time like I have.
    - stef25 6y ago
      > Covid has created an atmosphere where certain questions are not allowed to be asked I find that unacceptable so let's talk. Long story short I think that the economy will pick up again once this all blows over and that whatever negative consequences there are from a lockdown are still better than hundreds of thousands of people dying. One person dying is objectively worse than one person going bankrupt, this is ethics 101. I realise now that I'm doing exactly what you were criticizing (lamenting deaths) but I'd really like to hear your counter argument.
      - jquery 6y ago
        Define “blows over”. If covid appeared, today, with its current death rate (about 3x of the flu), there’s no way we would be taken the extraordinary measures that are being taken: shutting down schools, businesses, churches, and in general grossly violating constitutional rights with questionable efficacy. I see people saying “let’s wait for a vaccine” but what if a vaccine doesn’t appear for years? How many deaths of despair are worth it? How many domestic violence cases counterbalance one 70-year-old person dying (the average age of a covid death)? How many people going bankrupt is worth saving the life of a single person? What if I told you that going bankrupt is associated with increased likelihood of death? And so on... single-variate analysis of such a complex issue is doomed to fail, but that’s basically all I see.

xtony 6y ago

Maybe ask a friend who lives in China or a friend who has friends that live in China? They're also subject to fake news, but at least they can give you their experience of what daily life is like where they live. It's not like China is so locked down that it's impossible to communicate with their citizens.

gruez 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201310
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  "If Chinese citizens are told by their government that covid is no longer a risk to the general population and that western media outlets are fear mongering to damage China, they will believe it regardless of the truth. The CCP is the truth in China." Chinese people are incapable of thinking for themselves and anything you personally hear from one should be disregarded as brainwashing. With an attitude like this, I see no hope for meaningful future cooperation. Everybody on board the cold war train.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
blacksmith_tb 6y ago
But it may be unwise for them to say anything overly critical via electronic means. We'd almost need pen and paper (which might be eccentric enough to attract attention too).
- chillacy 6y ago
  I asked an American friend over Signal about it, he confirmed that the lockdown was less severe in Beijing months ago while US cities were in peak shelter in place. But he also said that every single day somebody would call to check in. That level of surveillance wouldn't fly here (our contact tracers are far less effective than say South Korea's). China isn't North Korea. You can use VPN to access the broader internet. And if you have an American SIM card, all your traffic gets routed through the US so you can access the full internet (it's just painfully slow).

quercusgrisea 6y ago

That they've eradicated coronavirus in Wuhan? The photos are pretty self-evident. If there was a government cover-up and people were still getting sick then we wouldn't see people putting themselves at risk to go to a music festival. >AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists so that they have sole control over the truth. I'm not able to find a source to confirm that, but I do see some news articles from earlier this year abiut China revoking press credentials for journalists from 3 US news outlets. AFAICT from searching, journalists from other countries and news outlets are not affected.

xboxnolifes 6y ago
If there was a government cover-up and people were still getting sick then we wouldn't see people putting themselves at risk to go to a music festival. I disagree with the conclusion here by looking at what people are willing to do locally.
- michaelgiba 6y ago
  > If there was a government cover-up and people were still getting sick then we wouldn't see people putting themselves at risk to go to a music festival. A tad misleading, if people cannot communicate publicly about people getting sick or hear this from media, why wouldn't they go to a music festival? They wouldn't know. Interested to hear your thoughts
  - xboxnolifes 6y ago
    I made a mistake and did not quote the line properly. The comment is not mine, but a quote from the poster I replied to.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Don't we have evidence from other countries that some people will, in fact, put themselves at risk when the virus is spreading? It's certainly not the Chinese government's official position that the virus is gone forever and everyone's safe now.

youdonotknowme 6y ago

My undergrad university is in Wuhan. I can personally confirm this since all my family and friends in China live almost like normal now. If I am being honest, I am disappointed and astonished to see how anti-intellectual, selfish, and conceited some Americans are. I do not like China's politics, which is one of the reasons that I do not go back. But I do not think U.S. should blame China for being in such a bad situation. More disappointedly, I do not see it getting better... I do not believe U.S. can contain it without vaccine.

jdietrich 6y ago

>AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists so that they have sole control over the truth. You'd be mistaken. Some American correspondents have had their visas revoked and Tibet and Xianjing are effectively off-limits, but there are huge numbers of foreign journalists working in China.

arslonga 6y ago

Here's Peter Hessler in the New Yorker on life in China over the past few months: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-controlled-the-coronavirus https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-cont... Basically it seems they do have things well under control.

codemk8 6y ago
Lol I posted the same link 2 mins after u

codemk8 6y ago

A recent report from New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-controlled-the-coronavirus https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/17/how-china-cont...

rsynnott 6y ago

> AFAIK they have kicked out all non-Chinese journalists No, that's not correct. It would be hard to verify, of course, and there could well be some unreported cases, but it's simply not plausible that China's seeing a US scale outbreak, or even an EU-scale one, without anyone noticing.