4 ms·

> 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

> 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.]

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.]