6 ms·

This is easily explained by a combination of past experience (SARS), Chinese dictatorship (Western countries can’t realistically solder people into their homes)

by tomp 5y ago

This is easily explained by a combination of past experience (SARS), Chinese dictatorship (Western countries can’t realistically solder people into their homes), hubris (“our medical system is so good that we could easily handle a pandemic”), wokeism (locking borders is evil) and scientific failures in medicine (if it’s not proven by randomised controlled trials, it doesn’t exist). Add a bit of political infighting in the mix (which presumably doesn’t exist in China) and ...

dataflow 5y ago
That's a mix of some 5-6 factors... what does "easily" mean here?
- usui 5y ago
  Parent comment was highlighting that a healthy variety of plausible factors contributed to each respective country's outcome, and not all of them would have to be true to produce such an outcome Not "easily" in the sense that it's easy to pinpoint the exact recipe, but "easily" in that the opposite outcomes would have been far more unlikely
- tomp 5y ago
  Maybe I should have written “obviously” instead. Basically, no need to invent “non-obvious” factors like “China had prior knowledge of the virus”. It’s definitely possible, but you can explain China’s success vs Western failure without that “hidden” factor as well.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    I'm not trying to quibble on the wording of your comment, but the thing is maybe you find it easy/obvious/whatever to combine those factors to explain this, but to me it's a fair bit of a jump. Here's one way to look at it: if we had asked "how will China respond?" back in the beginning, how well would you have been able to predict their response if you had known the virus was of zoonotic origin? What if you had known the virus was of lab origin? I would think in the second case you'd have a lot more people betting that we'd get a swift (& deflective) response than in the former case, but it sounds like you disagree?
    - tomp 5y ago
      Swift response in China is easily predictable by their experience and dictatorship. Taiwan reacted similarly, taking the disease seriously, because of their prior experience with SARS. The suppression of information and subsequent deflection, I find much more problematic. They can also be explained by China’s dictatorship and their aggressive PR management, but still... one of the easiest ways for China to dispel any “lab leak/release hypotheses” would be full transparency. So far they haven’t done that. But refusal to do so can again easily be explained by accidential lab leak / accident hypothesis, whereas the original parent was proposing that China had superior information in advance... again, possible, but not necessary to explain the current sequence of events.
    - adamauckland 5y ago
      China responded because they had already suffered from a previous outbreak of SARS. They probably were aware the risks of a highly infectious disease and possibly had contingencies drawn up for this very thing. The UK had planned for what would happen during a global outbreak and the Conservative government scrapped them and 140,000 people died.
      - agurk 5y ago
        The Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee (THRCC) was scrapped by Boris Johnson in July 2019, and had previously been "mothballed" by Theresa May to focus on Brexit efforts. Whether the existence of a group of 15 MPs including such luminaries as Michael Gove, Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson would have made a marked difference is not so obvious. Existing plans were not scrapped and some believe using these plans actually was a big factor in the lacklustre initial response. The plans were too specific on what had come before (SARS most recently) and didn't allow accommodation of the differences of covid. It took a notable amount of time to change direction. I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around if one was inclined to do so, but I don't think disbanding one committee (despite its prescient name) was particularly notable.
    - bondarchuk 5y ago
      OP made the argument China acted more competently than the west, and that this is suspicious and supports the lab leak hypothesis. Another explanation is that the west simply acted incompetently, while China acted "normally". Unfortunately it's not conceivable to many westerners that their governments are hilariously incompetent. Unfortunately, because it precludes improvement.
- scotty79 5y ago
  "easily" part is that they all exist and they simply need to add up. No intricate interaction between them is necessary.

by tomp 5y ago

dataflow 5y ago

That's a mix of some 5-6 factors... what does "easily" mean here?

usui 5y ago
Parent comment was highlighting that a healthy variety of plausible factors contributed to each respective country's outcome, and not all of them would have to be true to produce such an outcome Not "easily" in the sense that it's easy to pinpoint the exact recipe, but "easily" in that the opposite outcomes would have been far more unlikely
tomp 5y ago
Maybe I should have written “obviously” instead. Basically, no need to invent “non-obvious” factors like “China had prior knowledge of the virus”. It’s definitely possible, but you can explain China’s success vs Western failure without that “hidden” factor as well.
- dataflow 5y ago
  I'm not trying to quibble on the wording of your comment, but the thing is maybe you find it easy/obvious/whatever to combine those factors to explain this, but to me it's a fair bit of a jump. Here's one way to look at it: if we had asked "how will China respond?" back in the beginning, how well would you have been able to predict their response if you had known the virus was of zoonotic origin? What if you had known the virus was of lab origin? I would think in the second case you'd have a lot more people betting that we'd get a swift (& deflective) response than in the former case, but it sounds like you disagree?
  - tomp 5y ago
    Swift response in China is easily predictable by their experience and dictatorship. Taiwan reacted similarly, taking the disease seriously, because of their prior experience with SARS. The suppression of information and subsequent deflection, I find much more problematic. They can also be explained by China’s dictatorship and their aggressive PR management, but still... one of the easiest ways for China to dispel any “lab leak/release hypotheses” would be full transparency. So far they haven’t done that. But refusal to do so can again easily be explained by accidential lab leak / accident hypothesis, whereas the original parent was proposing that China had superior information in advance... again, possible, but not necessary to explain the current sequence of events.
  - adamauckland 5y ago
    China responded because they had already suffered from a previous outbreak of SARS. They probably were aware the risks of a highly infectious disease and possibly had contingencies drawn up for this very thing. The UK had planned for what would happen during a global outbreak and the Conservative government scrapped them and 140,000 people died.
    - agurk 5y ago
      The Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee (THRCC) was scrapped by Boris Johnson in July 2019, and had previously been "mothballed" by Theresa May to focus on Brexit efforts. Whether the existence of a group of 15 MPs including such luminaries as Michael Gove, Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson would have made a marked difference is not so obvious. Existing plans were not scrapped and some believe using these plans actually was a big factor in the lacklustre initial response. The plans were too specific on what had come before (SARS most recently) and didn't allow accommodation of the differences of covid. It took a notable amount of time to change direction. I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around if one was inclined to do so, but I don't think disbanding one committee (despite its prescient name) was particularly notable.
  - bondarchuk 5y ago
    OP made the argument China acted more competently than the west, and that this is suspicious and supports the lab leak hypothesis. Another explanation is that the west simply acted incompetently, while China acted "normally". Unfortunately it's not conceivable to many westerners that their governments are hilariously incompetent. Unfortunately, because it precludes improvement.
scotty79 5y ago
"easily" part is that they all exist and they simply need to add up. No intricate interaction between them is necessary.