Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

[siegecrossbow]

There's a narrative going around that the Wuhan authorities somehow failed in their handling of this virus. I think it behooves us to be skeptical of this narrative and ask the right questions instead of just being swept along by the current. Exactly how did the local government fail? The coronavirus family is a very broad one, and includes the common cold; should a city be quarantined every time a new variant of the common cold shows up? It was unknown if the virus had the ability to transmit between humans (most viruses that cross from animals don't) or, even if it did, that it was particularly dangerous. Once such dangerous mutations were suspected, the authorities went into action, and maximal action at that.


That's just the way things are now; we're in a geopolitical struggle, so everything is going to be weaponized to serve each side in the struggle. Welcome to the Second Cold War.

Well the Wuhan authorities have done a poor job in the month leading up to the outbreak. This is even supported by the official state narratives.

I agree that Western mainstream media is probably using this to bolster their narrative. However, shouldn’t we hold China to a higher standard? If the country could rapidly urbanize and lift millions out of extreme poverty, shouldn’t it have handled this crisis a lot better?

 

[localizer]

Well the Wuhan authorities have done a poor job in the month leading up to the outbreak. This is even supported by the official state narratives.

I agree that Western mainstream media is probably using this to bolster their narrative. However, shouldn’t we hold China to a higher standard? If the country could rapidly urbanize and lift millions out of extreme poverty, shouldn’t it have handled this crisis a lot better?

Good institutions don’t come out of nowhere. GDP per capita has to rise along with better institutions. The performance of the Chinese gov’t is better than expected consider where China is in terms of development.

Idk how many of you remember the Swine flu in the US.

“Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that about 59 million Americans contracted the H1N1 virus, 265,000 were hospitalized as a result, and 12,000 died.“ wiki for 2009 swine flu


“
In 1976, an outbreak of the swine flu,

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at

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, New Jersey caused one death, hospitalized 13, and led to a mass immunization program. After the program began, the vaccine was associated with an increase in reports of

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, which can cause paralysis, respiratory arrest, and death. The immunization program was ended after approximately 25% of the population of the United States had been administered the vaccine.

Richard Krause, Director of the

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from 1975 to 1984, writes that the government response to the swine flu outbreak was considered to be too fast and the response to the AIDS epidemic too slow.”- 1976 swine flu

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Well the Wuhan authorities have done a poor job in the month leading up to the outbreak. This is even supported by the official state narratives.

That or the Wuhan government is being made into a convenient scapegoat since people are baying for blood (at least according to Western media). Politically, I understand that the central government will and should make a scapegoat out of the Wuhan government. But out of a personal commitment to truth and evidence (especially important in a time of rampant information warfare), I'm not ready to howl and bay for blood with the mob until I understand exactly what happened, what lapses occurred and who was responsible for what lapse.

However, shouldn’t we hold China to a higher standard? If the country could rapidly urbanize and lift millions out of extreme poverty, shouldn’t it have handled this crisis a lot better?

I agree, but we shouldn't just hold the Chinese government to a higher standard. We should also hold the Chinese people to a higher standard. None of this would have happened if the disgusting practice of eating bats and snakes and who knows what else wasn't part of the local culture. If we're being honest with ourselves, we should admit that the anti-China narrative - biased and weaponized as it is - is not a complete fabrication.

 

[solarz]

Well the Wuhan authorities have done a poor job in the month leading up to the outbreak. This is even supported by the official state narratives.

I agree that Western mainstream media is probably using this to bolster their narrative. However, shouldn’t we hold China to a higher standard? If the country could rapidly urbanize and lift millions out of extreme poverty, shouldn’t it have handled this crisis a lot better?

Narratives are one thing. The reality is quite another.

Are you able to point out what exactly the Wuhan authorities did that was inexcusable?

Remember that we are still just one month since the virus was confirmed to be an entirely new virus. Nobody knew anything about this new virus, and civil authorities needed to balance other concerns against the remote possibility of a massive viral outbreak.

It's always easy to criticize, it's not so easy to actually do something. The 2019-nCoV is a black swan event, and people will inevitably be unprepared for such events.

If there was any foreseeable fault in this, it's that wet markets were allowed to continue operating for so long. However, that is hardly the fault of the Wuhan authorities alone.

 

[nugroho]

RIP. While I'm sure confusion and uncertainty clouded some official's judgement in the chaotic early days of the outbreak, I think the local government and law enforcement agency still have some explanation to do for what they did. If someone needs to take responsibility and step down, they should do so earlier rather than later.


February update, daily (cumulative):

2/1: confirmed 2,590 (14,380), suspected 4,562 (19,544*), severe case 315 (2,110), death 45 (304), cured 85 (328), under observation: 137,594 nation-wide
2/2: confirmed 2,829 (17,205), suspected 5,173 (21,558*), severe case 186 (2,296), death 57 (361), cured 147 (475), under observation: 152,700 nation-wide
2/3: confirmed 3,235 (20,438), suspected 5,072 (23,214*), severe case 492 (2,788), death 64 (425), cured 157 (634), under observation: 171,329 nation-wide
2/4: confirmed 3,887 (24,324), suspected 3,971 (23,260*), severe case 431 (3,219), death 65 (490), cured 262 (892), under observation: 185,555 nation-wide
2/5: confirmed 3,694 (28,018), suspected 5,328 (24,702*), severe case 640 (3,859), death 73 (563), cured 261 (1,153), under observation: 186,354 nation-wide
2/6: confirmed 3,143 (31,161), suspected 4,833 (26,359 *), severe case 962 (4,821), death 73 (636), cured 387 (1,540), under observation: 186,045 nation-wide

*cumulative suspected = cumulative suspected on the previous day + daily suspected – those who tested positive or negative on the same day (my personal unofficial explanation)

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Comment: daily confirmed case decreased 2 days in a row. The cumulative confirmed case outnumbered the cumulative suspected case 3 days in a row from 2/4.

Can you help me explain " the severe case ", are they come with severe pneumonia or they came with mild symptoms and became severe ( pneumonia )?
and after how many days it will ( in average / statistic ) increase death?

 

[Franklin]

This is definitely a institutional failure on part of China. That politicians can overrule doctors on medical issue's. It reminds me of those horror movies where the hero is warning of the impending danger while the local authorities are trying to sweep the danger under the carpet for economic reasons. This is much more than just Wuhan this is what is happening all over China. All local authorities operate more or less the same way. The CDC in China needs more resources and power to act during early stages of a potential outbreak.

And yes the practise of eating exotic animals needs to stop.

 

[Deleted member 13312]

Banning exotic animals off the plate on the table isn't going to resolve the problem, if anything it is going to push the wildlife trade underground which will exacerbate the problem. Such knee jerk actions are the last things China needs to do, what is more important is to create a way to regulate and test safety for exotic foods.

 

[Rettam Stacf]

This is a very interesting article from CNN.

Will the new coronavirus burn out like SARS ... or is it here to stay?

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It suggested that the 2019-nCoV is behaving more like Influenza or H1N1 and less like SARS or MERS.

SARS was so deadly that it killed a high number of its hosts and quickly. With aggressive human intervention like isolation and quarantine, eventually the SARS virus ran out of host and died away, never to raise its ugly head again (or at least has not reemerge for the last 17 years). MERS is looking like it will go the same route.

The scary thought is that 2019-nCoV will mutate and come back year after year, infecting millions and killing thousands, just like Influenza and H1N1, even though effective vaccines have been developed for both. The global economy toll of Influenza and H1N1 is significantly higher than SARS or MERS for the long term.

 

[solarz]

This is a very interesting article from CNN.

Will the new coronavirus burn out like SARS ... or is it here to stay?

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It suggested that the 2019-nCoV is behaving more like Influenza or H1N1 and less like SARS or MERS.

SARS was so deadly that it killed a high number of its hosts and quickly. With aggressive human intervention like isolation and quarantine, eventually the SARS virus ran out of host and died away, never to raise its ugly head again (or at least has not reemerge for the last 17 years). MERS is looking like it will go the same route.

The scary thought is that 2019-nCoV will mutate and come back year after year, infecting millions and killing thousands, just like Influenza and H1N1, even though effective vaccines have been developed for both. The global economy toll of Influenza and H1N1 is significantly higher than SARS or MERS for the long term.

Ironically enough, people are far more scared of SARS than of Influenza.

 

[solarz]

This is definitely a institutional failure on part of China. That politicians can overrule doctors on medical issue's. It reminds me of those horror movies where the hero is warning of the impending danger while the local authorities are trying to sweep the danger under the carpet for economic reasons. This is much more than just Wuhan this is what is happening all over China. All local authorities operate more or less the same way. The CDC in China needs more resources and power to act during early stages of a potential outbreak.

And yes the practise of eating exotic animals needs to stop.

As I recall, it was a health authority official that claimed the virus had a low risk of person-to-person transmission, and the Wuhan authorities based their decisions on that information.