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Nothing in the article talks about how the virus first got into humans, beyond assuming an animal (not lab) source. It simply focuses on how unlikely it was, ac

Nothing in the article talks about how the virus first got into humans, beyond assuming an animal (not lab) source. It simply focuses on how unlikely it was, according to simulations, to survive the chain of initial infections long enough to fully develop into a pandemic. The researchers discussed in the article believe the virus was present in a small number of people before the spread at the Wuhan market and view the spread there as among large numbers of people, not between the animals at the market and people there. So it's the crowds that were important there, not the seafood. Many countries around the world have densely crowded areas. In order words, this was probably an unlikely event that could have happened in any country worldwide with densely crowded areas. It happened to be China this time, but that's coincidence and should not lead to anti-Chinese or anti-Asian hate. Criticizing governments in China, the US, etc for aspects of their early pandemic handling is of course perfectly valid, as opposed to generalizing to the populations or ethnicities as a whole. But one should not discriminatorily focus on what China did wrong early on while ignoring the early mistakes of Western countries like the US, nor praise the US's mediocre pandemic results throughout most of 2020 while overlooking China's fast recovery through strict (albeit quite authoritarian) lockdowns. For reference, I am American and not Chinese, but I still don't blame Chinese people generally for their government's bad handling of the early containment stage of the pandemic, nor for the coincidence that this virus spread from China.

kryogen1c 6y ago
> But one should not discriminatorily focus on what China did wrong early on while ignoring the early mistakes of Western countries like the US this is wildly inaccurate. china single-handedly delayed world response by at least a month by jailing journalists, destroying samples, and lying to the WHO. comparing that to some degree of ineptitude in the US or anywhere else is nonsensical.
- jkaplowitz 6y ago
  I agree the Chinese government did all of that. Meanwhile the US handling of it has caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths within the US alone, according to an interview given to CNN recently by Trump's own White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx where she said everything beyond the first ~100,000 could have been "mitigated or decreased substantially": https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/dr-deborah-birx-cnn-documentary-covid-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/dr-deborah-b... To that statistic one must add the many consequences within the US other than deaths, the consequences across the rest of the world of US-led decisions like politicization of mask-wearing, and the many consequences of decisions taken by many other governments from outside of Asia (such as the COVID-denialist/anti-science presidents in Brazil and Mexico) that get overlooked when people hate on China regarding COVID-19. My point is not to defend the Chinese government's horrible early misdeeds, but rather that the current global pandemic situation is not uniquely or even primarily China's fault. Sure, perfect handling by the Chinese government would have had a chance of containing this pandemic within their borders. And clearly the bad-faith actions of the Chinese government early on were far from that perfect handling. But even perfect handling would still have relied on luck, and success would not have been guaranteed. In any case no country should be measured against perfection. Most of the consequences over the pandemic taken as a whole are truly the result of attitudes and policy decisions from countries other than China, very much including the US. [Edited to replace most references to "China" to "the Chinese government", to emphasize the differentiation between the government and the people. I am just as opposed to hate against the Chinese people as I am to the early pandemic handling of the Chinese government.]

kryogen1c 6y ago

> But one should not discriminatorily focus on what China did wrong early on while ignoring the early mistakes of Western countries like the US this is wildly inaccurate. china single-handedly delayed world response by at least a month by jailing journalists, destroying samples, and lying to the WHO. comparing that to some degree of ineptitude in the US or anywhere else is nonsensical.

jkaplowitz 6y ago
I agree the Chinese government did all of that. Meanwhile the US handling of it has caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths within the US alone, according to an interview given to CNN recently by Trump's own White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx where she said everything beyond the first ~100,000 could have been "mitigated or decreased substantially": https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/dr-deborah-birx-cnn-documentary-covid-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/28/dr-deborah-b... To that statistic one must add the many consequences within the US other than deaths, the consequences across the rest of the world of US-led decisions like politicization of mask-wearing, and the many consequences of decisions taken by many other governments from outside of Asia (such as the COVID-denialist/anti-science presidents in Brazil and Mexico) that get overlooked when people hate on China regarding COVID-19. My point is not to defend the Chinese government's horrible early misdeeds, but rather that the current global pandemic situation is not uniquely or even primarily China's fault. Sure, perfect handling by the Chinese government would have had a chance of containing this pandemic within their borders. And clearly the bad-faith actions of the Chinese government early on were far from that perfect handling. But even perfect handling would still have relied on luck, and success would not have been guaranteed. In any case no country should be measured against perfection. Most of the consequences over the pandemic taken as a whole are truly the result of attitudes and policy decisions from countries other than China, very much including the US. [Edited to replace most references to "China" to "the Chinese government", to emphasize the differentiation between the government and the people. I am just as opposed to hate against the Chinese people as I am to the early pandemic handling of the Chinese government.]