4 ms·

You're handwaving away an awful lot of systematic government coverup and lying. Most of the positive things you're saying were the works of individuals putting

by Exmoor 6y ago

You're handwaving away an awful lot of systematic government coverup and lying. Most of the positive things you're saying were the works of individuals putting their own safety and security at risk against the wishes of the government. The rest of the argument basically amounts to "We shouldn't have believed what the Chinese government was saying because there was a lot of evidence they were lying." I agree wholeheartedly, especially in retrospect, but that does not make their lying, and the long-term ramifications, acceptable. Transparency of the situation (or allowing outside observers) would have given the rest of the world valuable weeks or months and saved untold lives.

jacobolus 6y ago
> Transparency of the situation (or allowing outside observers) would have given the rest of the world valuable weeks or months and saved untold lives. Whatever the Chinese government might have been "saying" (in press releases?) their signals were abundantly clear to everyone paying attention, and should have been even clearer even earlier to folks with access to CIA reports etc. Feel free to criticize the Chinese government's statements per se all you like, but it is absurd for other governments who didn't take action for months despite an obvious need to blame the Chinese government for this. Especially when those governments have done plenty of their own lying (in the US case, arguably more). Frankly, I don't think more transparency from the Chinese would have made too much difference in the USA. The Trump administration would still have been calling the situation a Chinese hoax or deliberate biological warfare or whatever conspiracy theory. We can see clearly how e.g. South Korea mobilized the entire country, spun up nationwide testing at unprecedented speed, implemented a huge and very effective contact tracing program (if they had waited an extra few weeks and not caught the Shincheonji church cases in time, they might have ended up with uncontrollable spread), did detailed case studies for every case they could find and published all of the details, made sure every resident had access to masks, etc. etc. There is no inherent reason why much stronger responses couldn't have been made in the US and Europe. The US is among the best inherently prepared countries in the world for a crisis like this: little reliance on public transit, lots of jobs that can be done remotely, relatively few intergenerational households, a world-class public health agency, one of the richest healthcare systems in the world, world-class universities and research facilities, many large pharmaceutical companies, a national constitution and legal structure that gives the federal government broad powers in a health crisis, a position of international power and leadership with many strong alliances, a central position in the world economic order, a huge industrial base, ability to shift human resources from one place to another in response to local crises, a relatively self sufficient domestic economy, universal access to basic communications infrastructure, ... And yet we had among the worst responses in the world, due to abject failure of federal leadership, total lack of coordination, and rampant misinformation by GOP-aligned media and others.
austhrow743 6y ago
>Transparency of the situation (or allowing outside observers) would have given the rest of the world valuable weeks or months and saved untold lives. You think foreign governments who didn't take the virus seriously after seeing China's response to it would have taken it seriously if China had told them to?

by Exmoor 6y ago

jacobolus 6y ago

> Transparency of the situation (or allowing outside observers) would have given the rest of the world valuable weeks or months and saved untold lives. Whatever the Chinese government might have been "saying" (in press releases?) their signals were abundantly clear to everyone paying attention, and should have been even clearer even earlier to folks with access to CIA reports etc. Feel free to criticize the Chinese government's statements per se all you like, but it is absurd for other governments who didn't take action for months despite an obvious need to blame the Chinese government for this. Especially when those governments have done plenty of their own lying (in the US case, arguably more). Frankly, I don't think more transparency from the Chinese would have made too much difference in the USA. The Trump administration would still have been calling the situation a Chinese hoax or deliberate biological warfare or whatever conspiracy theory. We can see clearly how e.g. South Korea mobilized the entire country, spun up nationwide testing at unprecedented speed, implemented a huge and very effective contact tracing program (if they had waited an extra few weeks and not caught the Shincheonji church cases in time, they might have ended up with uncontrollable spread), did detailed case studies for every case they could find and published all of the details, made sure every resident had access to masks, etc. etc. There is no inherent reason why much stronger responses couldn't have been made in the US and Europe. The US is among the best inherently prepared countries in the world for a crisis like this: little reliance on public transit, lots of jobs that can be done remotely, relatively few intergenerational households, a world-class public health agency, one of the richest healthcare systems in the world, world-class universities and research facilities, many large pharmaceutical companies, a national constitution and legal structure that gives the federal government broad powers in a health crisis, a position of international power and leadership with many strong alliances, a central position in the world economic order, a huge industrial base, ability to shift human resources from one place to another in response to local crises, a relatively self sufficient domestic economy, universal access to basic communications infrastructure, ... And yet we had among the worst responses in the world, due to abject failure of federal leadership, total lack of coordination, and rampant misinformation by GOP-aligned media and others.

austhrow743 6y ago

>Transparency of the situation (or allowing outside observers) would have given the rest of the world valuable weeks or months and saved untold lives. You think foreign governments who didn't take the virus seriously after seeing China's response to it would have taken it seriously if China had told them to?