4 ms·

They already did. That's why it's all over the place now. They went so far as to force doctors to recant their statements that it was human-human transmissibl

They already did. That's why it's all over the place now. They went so far as to force doctors to recant their statements that it was human-human transmissible. For example, the hero doctor Li, who eventually died of the disease. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/asia/chinese-doctor-Li-Wenliang-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/asia/chinese-doctor...

iso1210 6y ago
Li's first statemen† was 30th Dec, the WHO also found on on 30th Dec, and had set up an incident management team by Jan 1st. Before 30th Dec nobody knew this was a new disease, they were still trying to identify it. By Jan 10th the WHO was warning people of person-person transmission. Western leaders ignored the warnings.
- tomohawk 6y ago
  Not so. On 14 Jan, WHO was still saying it was not person-person transmissible. https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 Chinese authorities knew about the disease at least by 6 Dec. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... And were punishing doctors for talking about it on 3 Jan, probably later, too. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2020/the-2019-coronavirus-virus-lands-in-the-u-s-after-killing-17-and-taking-eight-to-prison/ https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2020/the-2019-coronavi...
  - iso1210 6y ago
    Sigh. The WHO said that China had found no clear evidence of human-human transmission but based on similar diseases it's certainly possible and health care systems should be prepared. That is a responsible scientific response. Your link says "By Jan 2, 2020, 41 admitted hospital patients had been identified as having laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection" 4 days after the first cases were identified. Clearly there would be unidentified cases before that. Hindsight is very powerful.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
I don't deny that they'd be able to hide transmission for a period. But they would not be able to hide thousands of cases a day. Since the virus has logistic transmission properties when not suppressed, if what they are doing were not sufficient we would quickly see them having too many cases to keep under wraps.

iso1210 6y ago

Li's first statemen† was 30th Dec, the WHO also found on on 30th Dec, and had set up an incident management team by Jan 1st. Before 30th Dec nobody knew this was a new disease, they were still trying to identify it. By Jan 10th the WHO was warning people of person-person transmission. Western leaders ignored the warnings.

tomohawk 6y ago
Not so. On 14 Jan, WHO was still saying it was not person-person transmissible. https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 Chinese authorities knew about the disease at least by 6 Dec. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... And were punishing doctors for talking about it on 3 Jan, probably later, too. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2020/the-2019-coronavirus-virus-lands-in-the-u-s-after-killing-17-and-taking-eight-to-prison/ https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2020/the-2019-coronavi...
- iso1210 6y ago
  Sigh. The WHO said that China had found no clear evidence of human-human transmission but based on similar diseases it's certainly possible and health care systems should be prepared. That is a responsible scientific response. Your link says "By Jan 2, 2020, 41 admitted hospital patients had been identified as having laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection" 4 days after the first cases were identified. Clearly there would be unidentified cases before that. Hindsight is very powerful.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

I don't deny that they'd be able to hide transmission for a period. But they would not be able to hide thousands of cases a day. Since the virus has logistic transmission properties when not suppressed, if what they are doing were not sufficient we would quickly see them having too many cases to keep under wraps.