Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

solarz said:

I don't think this would work. Blood samples are not going to magically tell you someone has a previously unknown virus, you need to know what you are testing for!



We're a long way yet from AI being able to make these kinds of judgments.

Current AI technology relies on extremely large datasets for training. They are good for predicting things that happen all the time, useless for black swan events like COVID-19.

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Depends on how its used. Example, that 40000 people free food banquet in Wuhan, if days later an abnormally high number of people reported not feeling well and all had been at the same event, then an AI could pointpin an outbreak as having started there. Not saying this happened in real life, just an example.

AI is still in infancy, but should start to leverage it for more and more because China has the population, the need, and the brains, if anyone can get it to work it should be the Chinese

AI can be used to make mundane tasks scalable, why cant they train an AI good at detecting new diseases under the microscope?

lightmap said:

Depends on how its used. Example, that 40000 people free food banquet in Wuhan, if days later an abnormally high number of people reported not feeling well and all had been at the same event, then an AI could pointpin an outbreak as having started there. Not saying this happened in real life, just an example.

AI is still in infancy, but should start to leverage it for more and more because China has the population, the need, and the brains, if anyone can get it to work it should be the Chinese

AI can be used to make mundane tasks scalable, why cant they train an AI good at detecting new diseases under the microscope?

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Yes sure, but your example is a pretty obvious case that doesn't even require AI.

What you suggested in your previous post is to use AI to predict a new potential outbreak. Now we can certainly learn from COVID-19 and take measures to shore up any failings, and we don't really need AI to do that. The problem is things that we didn't think of that can become a catalyst. This is where AI might come in handy, but this requires massive amounts of data to train the AI, and we are simply not going to have that kind of data anytime soon. There simply aren't that many viral outbreaks for us to work with.

Josh Luo said:

Thank you for your well-articulated reply. In your opinion, how do you incentivize lower-level bureaucrats to alert the public at the onset of an incoming crisis? What are the appropriate institutions? I am asking this because PRC bureaucrats have a stability-maintenance mandate (which incentivizes bureaucrats to hide the depth of problems rather than confronting them head-on ASAP), alerting the public at the onset on a crisis could easily conflict with the former, as shown in Wuhan this time.

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I don't know all the facts but solely relying on the interviews with Dr Li and Dr Zhang and other reports by different institutions.

The goal isn't incentivized the lower-level bureaucrats but to establish protocol to deal with any emergency or crisis. After SARS, China has established a new reporting system for reporting diseases and virus. Dr Zhang took advantage of this reporting mechanism to report her findings of the new coronvirus on Dec 26 and her superior immediately notified the local CDC and the CCDC was alerted not much later. In addition, the local CDC notified some front line doctors to look out for a new pneumonia and to retract previous cases to find out what they are dealing with. On Dec 31, CCDC has confirmed this is a new type of virus and likely is a coronvirus. To an extent, the reporting system works well up til Dec 31.

Everything went sideways after that. One reason is it is a new unknown disease that they don't understand. Another reason it is a class B virus. So emergency protocol didn't activate. If it is a Class A virus or it is a known virus, then a major quarantine would be underway immediately. The local CDC failed badly after initial response. They quarantine the wet market but not the shop owners or workers. They didn't actively seek out patients etc. The first team that was sent by CCDC has not discussed much with the front line doctors and assess the cases mostly by paper works(need to verify by other accounts). The local government in the beginning is dismissive and later is in denial. The system also failed badly to confirm suspicious cases in the beginning which in turn allowed the local government to continue to be in denial mode.

They need to enact a new protocol to deal with new infectious disease or any unknown disease. A limited quarantine should be underway immediately after the finding of a new disease. Local hospitals should be notified. Level 3(different countries have different level for hospitals) should be enacted so doctors and nurses could wear mask and take protective measure. CCDC should send a team with the front line doctors to confirm cases and assess if the virus can be transmit from human to human. Local government should stock pile emergency medial supplies and have emergency plans to deal with any curfew and lock down. If any suspicious "cases" of human to human infection are established, then the CCDC should notify the public. We are all human beings so mistakes can be made and will be made. But with protocol, we will minimize mstakes and fallout.

solarz said:

The fact is China's health care system detected this viral outbreak extremely quickly.

Li Wenliang wasn't a whistleblower, he was an ophthalmologist who shared his suspicions of a new SARS outbreak privately on WeChat, but someone took a screenshot of his chat and spread it to the general public. Tragically, Dr. Li contracted the virus and died from it.

This turned Dr. Li into a martyr, and the truth of what actually happened has been quickly forgotten. Dr. Li was one of the few doctors who suspected that the few cases of pneumonia in December 2019 had the potential to become a viral outbreak. Some of them shared their concerns with the relevant authorities, others, like Dr. Li, shared them privately. Those are perfectly normal and expected behaviors in the early stage of a viral outbreak!

Public authorities, both the civil authority of Wuhan and the public health authority of China CDC, can only act with the information they have. A few dire warnings among other contradictory reassurances does not constitute enough evidence to immediately quarantine an entire city of 14 million people, especially shortly before the most important holiday of the nation. Once conclusive evidence came out of the seriousness of the virus, Chinese authorities took immediate and decisive action.

It took less than two weeks for the Chinese authorities to lock down Wuhan after researchers confirmed the nature of this new virus. It is now February 12 and we are already seeing a drop in the number of new confirmed infections. It has only been one month since COVID-19 was first discovered!

Realistically speaking, it would be extremely difficult to be anymore efficient in a country the size of China.

What it can do, as I mentioned before, is to ban the operation of wet markets and step up on the enforcement of health regulations for meat vendors.

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Longtime (15+ years) lurker here. While the Chinese doctors and scientists did rapidly identify the cause of the disease as a previously unknown virus then again rapidly sequenced and shared its genetic information, the public health authorities on city, provincial and national levels were slow to response and had most likely engaged in deliberate cover-ups.

Check out this report from Caixin, one of China's best business journals (in Chinese):


According to Caixin's investigation, by early January healthcare workers in multiple Wuhan hospitals were already alarmed by the large number of patients with pneumonia symptoms and unidentified causes, and by the fact that similar symptom was spreading among healthcare workers. At that time, hospitals administrators began to hide evidence for human to human transmissions by locking away CT scans of afflicted healthcare workers. By the second week of January, frontline healthcare workers Caixin interviewed were convinced that healthcare authorities were lying to the public.

No one expects the government to lock down Wuhan at the first sight of an epidemic, but public health measures like wearing masks, reminders about personal hygiene and some forms of social distancing could have been introduced about 10 days earlier. At the least they could have begun to stockpile personal protective equipment for healthcare workers.

Here's another Caixin interview:


Note in particular:

此前，国家卫健委派的专家组已经到金银潭医院做了调查，做了一套诊断标准，要有华南海鲜市场的接触史，要有发烧症状，全基因组测序，这三条标准都达到才能确诊。

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So in early January the National Health Commission experts made the requirement to hospitals in Wuhan that a contact history with the seafood market must be established before a patient could be diagnosed. Think about this for a moment. If patients without contact history with the seafood market were not allowed to be diagnosed, then of course the evidence for human to human transmission was going to be weak. Not a doctor/public health expert but I had a hard-time believing this was the correct procedure for dealing with a potentially infectious disease. I would be happy if someone more knowledgeable than me could tell me the National Health Commission was correct, otherwise it seems to me that attempts to cover up the crisis were made by not just provincial but also national-level authority.

Again I want to stress that Chinese healthcare workers and scientists did fantastic, almost superhuman, works in fighting Covid-19. But we shouldn't gloss over the failures of the Chinese government on both local and central levels. This could have turned out much better.

Josh Luo said:

But by doing things like preventing doctors from alerting the public about an incoming crisis, the CCP is eroding the very stability and support it desires. As these mistakes accumulate, it risk pushing the more educated Chinese populace and professionals toward the arms of liberal democracies.
Also, where did you get the 99 to 99.5% figure? Is that published by the CCP propaganda apparatus? I acknowledge the fact the CCP still enjoys overwhelming support within China, but keep in mind that you still got extremely powerful groups like Falun Gong, overseas Chinese liberal intellectuals, Chinese Christian organizations, and those who participated in political activism back in 1989 (not to mention the rebellious, but heathen, minorities killing Han Chinese and trying to carve out half of PRC territories for their so-called "national liberations"). Then there is a great Hong Kong revolt of 2019. I really don't see another nation state besides Iran and China that face such a powerful organized resistance (in cooperation with their fatherland's strategic competitors) from their overseas kinsman. Clearly the CCP faces numerous "domestic" rivals, so I don't see how the 99-99.5 figure makes sense. At last, a lot of resistance/non-cooperation from Chinese liberal intellectuals are more subtle, because they don't want to to lose their jobs. Otherwise, why was there such an outpouring of anger and vague demands for freedom of speech on WeChat and Weibo after Dr. Li Wenliang died?

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Please show evidence how powerful Falun Gong, except you are one of them , talking bullshit in street, really annoying .

OppositeDay said:

Longtime (15+ years) lurker here. While the Chinese doctors and scientists did rapidly identify the cause of the disease as a previously unknown virus then again rapidly sequenced and shared its genetic information, the public health authorities on city, provincial and national levels were slow to response and had most likely engaged in deliberate cover-ups.

Check out this report from Caixin, one of China's best business journals (in Chinese):

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

According to Caixin's investigation, by early January healthcare workers in multiple Wuhan hospitals were already alarmed by the large number of patients with pneumonia symptoms and unidentified causes, and by the fact that similar symptom was spreading among healthcare workers. At that time, hospitals administrators began to hide evidence for human to human transmissions by locking away CT scans of afflicted healthcare workers. By the second week of January, frontline healthcare workers Caixin interviewed were convinced that healthcare authorities were lying to the public.

No one expects the government to lock down Wuhan at the first sight of an epidemic, but public health measures like wearing masks, reminders about personal hygiene and some forms of social distancing could have been introduced about 10 days earlier. At the least they could have begun to stockpile personal protective equipment for healthcare workers.

Here's another Caixin interview:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Note in particular:

So in early January the National Health Commission experts made the requirement to hospitals in Wuhan that a contact history with the seafood market must be established before a patient could be diagnosed. Think about this for a moment. If patients without contact history with the seafood market were not allowed to be diagnosed, then of course the evidence for human to human transmission was going to be weak. Not a doctor/public health expert but I had a hard-time believing this was the correct procedure for dealing with a potentially infectious disease. I would be happy if someone more knowledgeable than me could tell me the National Health Commission was correct, otherwise it seems to me that attempts to cover up the crisis were made by not just provincial but also national-level authority.

Again I want to stress that Chinese healthcare workers and scientists did fantastic, almost superhuman, works in fighting Covid-19. But we shouldn't gloss over the failures of the Chinese government on both local and central levels. This could have turned out much better.

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The mistake everyone pushing the "cover-up" story makes, including the Caixin article above, is hindsight bias.

Given that we known COVID-19 is 1) a new virus, and 2) has caused an epidemic, if we now go back and look at the actions and decisions of public health authorities, it is easy to imagine there was a cover up going on. When the authorities downplay the seriousness of the virus, you are thinking: "hey, we know the virus is serious, so obviously these guys are lying!".

What you are failing to take into account is that false positives far outnumber the false negatives.

When administrators and authorities downplay the seriousness of the outbreak, they are not trying to cover things up. They are trying to prevent people from panicking for no reason.

My twins were born premature at 29-weeks. They spent 3 months in the NICU. During that stay, the hospital we were at had an alert for an abnormally infectious flu-like virus. Needless to say, everyone at the NICU was extremely worried. The nurses reassured us that as long as we kept to established hygiene procedures, there was nothing for us to worry about. A week later, no viral outbreak occurred and everyone promptly forgot about this incident.

These kinds of alerts happen all the time in hospitals. COVID-19 happened in the middle of flu season, where many hospitals are routinely overwhelmed with pneumonia patients. When the surge of pneumonia patients occurred early on in Wuhan, the possibility of this being due to a completely novel and highly infectious virus was scientifically remote. A far more likely explanation was a simple statistical surge in the number of flu complications. That is why they needed the link to the seafood market to establish that this really was a novel virus. This was no conspiracy, simply the first step in establishing a valid epidemiological case.

Hendrik_2000 said:

This German guy is great He complained why the west beaten up on China What is wrong with the west Where is your humanity, your empathy ? He impressed how the Chinese show unity and loves for their country men and the land. He said China did everything to prevent the spread of the disease world wide. Sehr gut und vielen dank. Kampfen gegen virus und night gegen die menschen. Wir sind alle Chinesen

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I could not watch it as it tells me its blocked

didn't know "In a new policy, China’s more than 2,000 counties will be rated according to their risk of an outbreak of the virus, which will determine their priorities and policies."
also about at least 5.6% growth needed this year to double 2010 GDP of China;

follow the link if interested

B.I.B. said:

I could not watch it as it tells me its blocked

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No it's not blocked. You just have to go on to YouTube to watch it.

Hendrik_2000 said:

China, SK, Japan deepen ties amid epidemic

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Source:Global Times Published: 2020/2/11
We may have different social system and have dispute. But when tragedy struck people will close rank because it affect common people and has nothing to do with ideology or bad history

Supportive banners outside the South Korean Embassy in Beijing. Photo: South Korean Embassy


South Korea and Japan have both shown great support for China amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, which many Chinese citizens hailed as a sign of the deepening friendship of the three East Asian countries.

The government of Seoul, capital of South Korea, said on Tuesday it would donate medical supplies and equipment worth around 3.5 million yuan ($506,000) to dozens of Chinese cities including Beijing, to help China combat the pneumonia epidemic.

Yonhap News Agency reported that medical supplies to China include 1,000 protective outfits, 500 pairs of medical goggles, and 30 thermal imaging cameras, and the country's Korea Federation of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprise) also participated in the donation.

A batch of materials are expected to leave Incheon International Airport and arrive in Seoul's Chinese sister cities, including Beijing and some other cities in Northeast China's Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces, on Wednesday, it reported.

Seoul mayor Park Won-soon also extended his gratitude toward Beijing's previous assistance of special assistance teams to Seoul during the MERS outbreak, and wished China a rapid easing of the current difficulties.

Additionally, the Korean Embassy displayed a banner which read, "China's difficulties are also ours." The embassy wrote in a post on China's Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo, including a picture of the banner that read "South Korean Embassy is with you," with the hashtag "because we are family."

Japan also showed sincerity amid the outbreak.

Lawmakers of the Japanese ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP), would each donate around 320 yuan to China, Toshihiro Nikai, the party secretary general told the media on Monday.

Japan is ready to mobilize the whole country and provide all assistance possible to China in combating the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, heavyweights of the ruling camp, including Toshihiro Nikai, said on Friday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

A friend in need is a friend indeed, said Nikai, adding that the Japanese side is ready to spare no effort to provide all possible assistance to China and work with China to combat the epidemic.

Japan has collected 120,000 sets of protective outfits and will send them to medical institutions in Hubei, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces as well as other places as soon as possible, Nikai said.

The epidemic has proved who are true friends, and China will remember, Chinese netizens said.

"Come to Harbin [capital of Heilongjiang Province] and the local cuisine will be my treat, dear friend," wrote one Weibo user, welcoming friends from Japan and South Korea.

A TV station in North China's Shanxi Province withdrew the airing of a TV series that contains plots about the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-1945), with netizens speculating that the withdrawal is a response to Japan's friendly gestures as it has done a lot to assist in the novel coronavirus pneumonia fight in China.

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One positive outcome from this Covid19 is that China, S Korea and Japan may finally realize that due to geographic proximity, they are all in this together whether it is an epidemic, economy or natural disasters, or war. It is up to the 3 to work together to resolve any issues instead of relying on outside forces.