4 ms·

China PCR test orders soared before first reported Covid case

68 points by johntfella 5y ago

csense 5y ago
The article says this was "according to a report from researchers in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia." I wish it included a link.
- kaezon 5y ago
  I don't understand why archiving and linking source material isn't the norm.
- isp 5y ago
  Original report: https://internet2-0.com/whitepaper/procuring-for-a-pandemic/ https://internet2-0.com/whitepaper/procuring-for-a-pandemic/ Bloomberg article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-04/china-pcr-purchases-spiked-in-months-before-first-known-covid-cases-firm-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-04/china-pcr... Looking at the graph in the Bloomberg article, the PCR spending increases began years ago, so the evidence for the conclusion isn't overwhelmingly compelling.
  - vfulco2 5y ago
    Email with link to original report doesn't deliver a document. Appreciate if someone can post here.
    - johntfella 5y ago
      mind you this source is bias but does have the report available to download; https://humanevents.com/2021/10/04/breaking-china-pcr-test-orders-soared-before-first-reported-covid-case-government-contracts-show-surges-in-wuhan-area-purchases-starting-may-2019/ https://humanevents.com/2021/10/04/breaking-china-pcr-test-o...
dane-pgp 5y ago
I'm not sure if this discovery will ever amount to a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard of proof of a cover-up, especially in an internationally accepted judicial setting, but I do wonder if, in general, there needs to be a legal principle that hiding evidence of something has to be punished as harshly as the worst plausible crime that the evidence could be hiding. Such a principle would, admittedly, lead to many defendants being punished for crimes they didn't actually commit (i.e. they were only covering up lesser crimes), but without such a principle, a guilty person will always face a rational choice of covering up their crime and risking only an additional "destruction of evidence" charge (for example), as opposed to being caught for the actual crime and incurring the (presumably harsher) punishment for that. For such a principle to pass the smell test, though, it should first and foremost apply to government record laws, covering everything from politician's official emails to police body-cam footage. A society which elects politicians willing to be held to that standard can be assumed to be mature enough to have this principle applied to other criminals.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  > I do wonder if, in general, there needs to be a legal principle that hiding evidence of something has to be punished as harshly as the worst plausible crime that the evidence could be hiding There are various formulations of the adverse inference rule, but worse still is the false-exculpatory-statement / consciousness-of-guilt jury instruction. As a defense attorney, I have pled serious cases out based on a fear of that instruction.
- xyzzy21 5y ago
  That's exactly the thing - individually there's deniability. But taken in toto, the circumstantial evidence of lab leak is stunning and obvious. It's even quickly entering "it was designed as a bioweapon but 'probably' leaked by accident but maybe not" territory. This news, for example, raises that question strongly.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    Such a strange thing to make, a highly transmissible airborne quickly mutating virus as a bioweapon? It's far too unpredictable as a weapon, bordering on insanity. How could it ever be used as a weapon? At least anthrax spores settle down and can be decominated. no such option with coronaviruses.
elzbardico 5y ago
Well. It leaked, they kept quiet as they always do. We will keep finding the smoking gun forever and they will never admit it. It was an accident though. Let’s hope they learned their lesson.
- cyanydeez 5y ago
  its still not evidence of a lab leak. a state wide coverup a potential global health issue, sure.
  - JudasGoat 5y ago
    To me, I find that China stopping internal travel while allowing International flights to continue to be more damming than whether or not the source was a lab.
    - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
      This is an urban legend. Wuhan's international airport was completely shut down. The only flights allowed out were specially chartered evacuation flights, organized by foreign governments.
DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
This is about as reliable as the reports claiming that 20 million Chinese people had died because of a dip in the number of cell phone contracts early on in the pandemic. The idea that the virus was spreading to any significant extent in Wuhan in May 2019 is absurd. The outbreak only reached sufficient proportion to be noticed in late December 2019, when hospitals first started noticing clusters of pneumonia patients. And by all appearances, the Chinese government was completely unprepared for the outbreak - the response in late December 2019 through mid-January 2020 was chaotic and ineffective. The idea that the government had been secretly preparing for more than half a year in advance of the first known outbreak in Wuhan just doesn't make any sense at all. It's a sad statement on the state of journalism that this sort of nonsense gets any traction in mainstream media, and it's an even sadder statement on the level of anti-Chinese paranoia that people buy it.

68 points by johntfella 5y ago

The article says this was "according to a report from researchers in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia." I wish it included a link.

kaezon 5y ago
I don't understand why archiving and linking source material isn't the norm.
isp 5y ago
Original report: https://internet2-0.com/whitepaper/procuring-for-a-pandemic/ https://internet2-0.com/whitepaper/procuring-for-a-pandemic/ Bloomberg article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-04/china-pcr-purchases-spiked-in-months-before-first-known-covid-cases-firm-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-04/china-pcr... Looking at the graph in the Bloomberg article, the PCR spending increases began years ago, so the evidence for the conclusion isn't overwhelmingly compelling.
- vfulco2 5y ago
  Email with link to original report doesn't deliver a document. Appreciate if someone can post here.
  - johntfella 5y ago
    mind you this source is bias but does have the report available to download; https://humanevents.com/2021/10/04/breaking-china-pcr-test-orders-soared-before-first-reported-covid-case-government-contracts-show-surges-in-wuhan-area-purchases-starting-may-2019/ https://humanevents.com/2021/10/04/breaking-china-pcr-test-o...

dane-pgp 5y ago

I'm not sure if this discovery will ever amount to a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard of proof of a cover-up, especially in an internationally accepted judicial setting, but I do wonder if, in general, there needs to be a legal principle that hiding evidence of something has to be punished as harshly as the worst plausible crime that the evidence could be hiding. Such a principle would, admittedly, lead to many defendants being punished for crimes they didn't actually commit (i.e. they were only covering up lesser crimes), but without such a principle, a guilty person will always face a rational choice of covering up their crime and risking only an additional "destruction of evidence" charge (for example), as opposed to being caught for the actual crime and incurring the (presumably harsher) punishment for that. For such a principle to pass the smell test, though, it should first and foremost apply to government record laws, covering everything from politician's official emails to police body-cam footage. A society which elects politicians willing to be held to that standard can be assumed to be mature enough to have this principle applied to other criminals.

torstenvl 5y ago
> I do wonder if, in general, there needs to be a legal principle that hiding evidence of something has to be punished as harshly as the worst plausible crime that the evidence could be hiding There are various formulations of the adverse inference rule, but worse still is the false-exculpatory-statement / consciousness-of-guilt jury instruction. As a defense attorney, I have pled serious cases out based on a fear of that instruction.
xyzzy21 5y ago
That's exactly the thing - individually there's deniability. But taken in toto, the circumstantial evidence of lab leak is stunning and obvious. It's even quickly entering "it was designed as a bioweapon but 'probably' leaked by accident but maybe not" territory. This news, for example, raises that question strongly.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  Such a strange thing to make, a highly transmissible airborne quickly mutating virus as a bioweapon? It's far too unpredictable as a weapon, bordering on insanity. How could it ever be used as a weapon? At least anthrax spores settle down and can be decominated. no such option with coronaviruses.

elzbardico 5y ago

Well. It leaked, they kept quiet as they always do. We will keep finding the smoking gun forever and they will never admit it. It was an accident though. Let’s hope they learned their lesson.

cyanydeez 5y ago
its still not evidence of a lab leak. a state wide coverup a potential global health issue, sure.
- JudasGoat 5y ago
  To me, I find that China stopping internal travel while allowing International flights to continue to be more damming than whether or not the source was a lab.
  - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
    This is an urban legend. Wuhan's international airport was completely shut down. The only flights allowed out were specially chartered evacuation flights, organized by foreign governments.

DiogenesKynikos 5y ago

This is about as reliable as the reports claiming that 20 million Chinese people had died because of a dip in the number of cell phone contracts early on in the pandemic. The idea that the virus was spreading to any significant extent in Wuhan in May 2019 is absurd. The outbreak only reached sufficient proportion to be noticed in late December 2019, when hospitals first started noticing clusters of pneumonia patients. And by all appearances, the Chinese government was completely unprepared for the outbreak - the response in late December 2019 through mid-January 2020 was chaotic and ineffective. The idea that the government had been secretly preparing for more than half a year in advance of the first known outbreak in Wuhan just doesn't make any sense at all. It's a sad statement on the state of journalism that this sort of nonsense gets any traction in mainstream media, and it's an even sadder statement on the level of anti-Chinese paranoia that people buy it.