5 ms·

Regardless of where your opinion stands, the way the Chinese government, WHO scientists, and even some American scientists handled (and continue to handle) the

Regardless of where your opinion stands, the way the Chinese government, WHO scientists, and even some American scientists handled (and continue to handle) the search for the origin of Covid is despicable. Contrast to the incredible lab work of African scientists when Omicron first came out.

major505 5y ago
Maybe if they had taken the correct measures in the beggining, it would never turned into this cluesterfuck. China will be accounted one day for this.
- chrischen 5y ago
  You make it sound like the spread of covid could have been avoided. Only some island nations managed to prevent the spread and even then they are merely delaying the inevitable.
  - major505 5y ago
    Mabybe, When SARS break into Asia, WHO recommended closure of all airports and the governments instituted quarantine into the region. If the Chinese government did not tried to hide covid from the world, maybe it could be contianed in a smaller region. Maybe.
    - chrischen 5y ago
      SARS more deadly and less transmissible. There were plenty of countries that still ended up having enough advance notice, including the United States (Italy was already getting screwed by covid at the time), yet that did it no good. Plus, we don't exactly trust the Chinese government in the first place, so using it as an excuse just sounds downright lazy.
    - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
      China publicly announced the outbreak on 30 December 2019, just a few days after detecting the first patients, before they even knew for certain what it was caused by. The Chinese government gave the the US government a detailed briefing on the outbreak and what it knew about the new virus on 3 January 2020, less than a week after discovering the first patients. China publicly announced that a novel coronavirus was responsible for the outbreak just days later. Despite these very early warnings, the US government took almost no measures for more than two months. Even after China locked down 60 million people in Hubei province in late January 2020, the US did nothing of significance to control the virus. The US waited until it had a full-blown, massive outbreak in New York City to react. What could China have possibly done to convince the US government to take the virus more seriously? Seeing China implement massive lockdowns wasn't even enough to spur the US into action.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  And if the work prior administrations had done on disease surveillance and assistance to other countries in handling outbreaks hadn't been ripped apart, that would have helped as well. Lot of folks to blame.
- jjulius 5y ago
  >China will be accounted one day for this. Boy, have I got a bridge to sell ya.
- jlmorton 5y ago
  Covid was already in Europe by December 27th, 2019. The pathogen was first noticed in China on December 29th, 2019, with a few dozen patients hospitalized in Wuhan presenting with pneumonia, during peak flu season. China notified the WHO of a pneumonia of unknown cause on December 31st, 2019. One week before, there were only a few hospitalized patients. With a few dozen hospitalized patients, you would expect perhaps several hundred patients infected, many asymptomatic, and many with mild symptoms. Please explain what you would have done to prevent the spread of Covid given these facts, how the virus could have been detected earlier, and what reasonable steps could have prevented global transmission. We now know that Covid was likely transmitting in China by mid-November 2019, and the earliest case dates to Dec 8. But it's not very easy to identify a novel pathogen when there are single digit numbers of patients presenting with flu-like symptoms during peak flu season.
- munk-a 5y ago
  > China will be accounted one day for this. In much the same way those dastardly oil companies will pay for covering up their knowledge of global warming in the 70's and not doing anything to stem the tide when it was trivial to do so. Punishments to large organizations don't happen when we have weak governments since the organizations just slowly dissolve the guilt as members retire out.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    Isn't there a lawsuit going on against Exxon?
- thebigman433 5y ago
  Im curious, do you think what they did significantly matters? COVID was already in Europe by the end of 2019, it seems unlikely that there was any chance to stop the spread before that. How do you hold them accountable, and for what exactly? Do you blame them for all 800k+ deaths in the US? It seems we mostly did that to ourselves.
mistrial9 5y ago
contrast to Ebola, too
jlmorton 5y ago
I'm not sure I understand how to contrast the two things. They are entirely unrelated.
munk-a 5y ago
> Contrast to the incredible lab work of African scientists when Omicron first came out. And yet, if hindsight is 20/20 those South African scientists probably should have kept their mouth shut since the entire world (briefly, I'll grant) responded to the open sharing of information by essentially embargoing the country - while China remained in a pretty positive light through early COVID receiving praise for aggressive lock downs and quickly produced procedures to help try and stem the spread of "the disease that just happened to hit them first". You can say that one of those parties acted in a way we'd like to see more of in the future - but the world's reaction rewarded (or was neutral at least) China and punished South Africa. It sucks but it's true.
- baja_blast 5y ago
  Also when a lab in Taiwan got fined after they reported a researcher studying covid in a BSL3 lab got bitten by a mouse and got infected. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4387611 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4387611 What is the lesson here? If pathogens leak from your lab, cover it up and tell no one. These researchers in Taiwan got punished for doing the right thing!

major505 5y ago

Maybe if they had taken the correct measures in the beggining, it would never turned into this cluesterfuck. China will be accounted one day for this.

chrischen 5y ago
You make it sound like the spread of covid could have been avoided. Only some island nations managed to prevent the spread and even then they are merely delaying the inevitable.
- major505 5y ago
  Mabybe, When SARS break into Asia, WHO recommended closure of all airports and the governments instituted quarantine into the region. If the Chinese government did not tried to hide covid from the world, maybe it could be contianed in a smaller region. Maybe.
  - chrischen 5y ago
    SARS more deadly and less transmissible. There were plenty of countries that still ended up having enough advance notice, including the United States (Italy was already getting screwed by covid at the time), yet that did it no good. Plus, we don't exactly trust the Chinese government in the first place, so using it as an excuse just sounds downright lazy.
  - DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
    China publicly announced the outbreak on 30 December 2019, just a few days after detecting the first patients, before they even knew for certain what it was caused by. The Chinese government gave the the US government a detailed briefing on the outbreak and what it knew about the new virus on 3 January 2020, less than a week after discovering the first patients. China publicly announced that a novel coronavirus was responsible for the outbreak just days later. Despite these very early warnings, the US government took almost no measures for more than two months. Even after China locked down 60 million people in Hubei province in late January 2020, the US did nothing of significance to control the virus. The US waited until it had a full-blown, massive outbreak in New York City to react. What could China have possibly done to convince the US government to take the virus more seriously? Seeing China implement massive lockdowns wasn't even enough to spur the US into action.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
And if the work prior administrations had done on disease surveillance and assistance to other countries in handling outbreaks hadn't been ripped apart, that would have helped as well. Lot of folks to blame.
jjulius 5y ago
>China will be accounted one day for this. Boy, have I got a bridge to sell ya.
jlmorton 5y ago
Covid was already in Europe by December 27th, 2019. The pathogen was first noticed in China on December 29th, 2019, with a few dozen patients hospitalized in Wuhan presenting with pneumonia, during peak flu season. China notified the WHO of a pneumonia of unknown cause on December 31st, 2019. One week before, there were only a few hospitalized patients. With a few dozen hospitalized patients, you would expect perhaps several hundred patients infected, many asymptomatic, and many with mild symptoms. Please explain what you would have done to prevent the spread of Covid given these facts, how the virus could have been detected earlier, and what reasonable steps could have prevented global transmission. We now know that Covid was likely transmitting in China by mid-November 2019, and the earliest case dates to Dec 8. But it's not very easy to identify a novel pathogen when there are single digit numbers of patients presenting with flu-like symptoms during peak flu season.
munk-a 5y ago
> China will be accounted one day for this. In much the same way those dastardly oil companies will pay for covering up their knowledge of global warming in the 70's and not doing anything to stem the tide when it was trivial to do so. Punishments to large organizations don't happen when we have weak governments since the organizations just slowly dissolve the guilt as members retire out.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Isn't there a lawsuit going on against Exxon?
thebigman433 5y ago
Im curious, do you think what they did significantly matters? COVID was already in Europe by the end of 2019, it seems unlikely that there was any chance to stop the spread before that. How do you hold them accountable, and for what exactly? Do you blame them for all 800k+ deaths in the US? It seems we mostly did that to ourselves.

mistrial9 5y ago

contrast to Ebola, too

jlmorton 5y ago

I'm not sure I understand how to contrast the two things. They are entirely unrelated.

munk-a 5y ago

> Contrast to the incredible lab work of African scientists when Omicron first came out. And yet, if hindsight is 20/20 those South African scientists probably should have kept their mouth shut since the entire world (briefly, I'll grant) responded to the open sharing of information by essentially embargoing the country - while China remained in a pretty positive light through early COVID receiving praise for aggressive lock downs and quickly produced procedures to help try and stem the spread of "the disease that just happened to hit them first". You can say that one of those parties acted in a way we'd like to see more of in the future - but the world's reaction rewarded (or was neutral at least) China and punished South Africa. It sucks but it's true.

baja_blast 5y ago
Also when a lab in Taiwan got fined after they reported a researcher studying covid in a BSL3 lab got bitten by a mouse and got infected. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4387611 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4387611 What is the lesson here? If pathogens leak from your lab, cover it up and tell no one. These researchers in Taiwan got punished for doing the right thing!