Coronavirus - What Happened?

My thought is that we don’t have any credible information to tell us how this started or how serious the situation is, it’s all speculation. And whether the international response is in fact overblown is hard to judge since we don’t really know what we are dealing with. A lot more people got the flu this year and a lot more died from it too, but coronavirus is new and nobody can be sure what will happen in the long run. Based on the supposed numbers, it’s something like 4% of people who got coronavirus who have died, if it spreads all over the world then potentially 2-4% of the world’s population could die off as a result.

Last I heard they were quarantining people in other countries too (Canada included) but not whole cities since it’s not on such a large scale. What is an appropriate response in a situation like that?

Quarantine in Wuhan and in hospitals is justified, So are travel restrictions but not declaring “world emergency” given that only 2 people have died outside China

A highly contagious virus with a 2-4% mortality rate has begun the spread to all parts of the globe from a world hub.

When would a good time be to label it a worldwide emergency?

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What’s wrong with declaring it a global emergency? If it spreads enough then it could be a huge disaster. It’s the same situation as with SARS except way worse.

True story: SARS got a huge headstart when a sick person flushed their diarrhea in an apartment building. The HVAC in the building had it’s intake near the sewer vent where SARS shit particles in the air got recirculated in the building infecting dozens.

To me, China seemed to have a pretty good response to this virus. Not an ideal response, but an acceptabley quick and serious response that can be studied and learned from to be better next time. Maybe I’m missing part of the story though.

I think some people are upset because they are having their rights violated, which is true but what else is the government supposed to do? Let everyone get sick and potentially tens of millions die? China would get fucked over way worse if they weren’t doing everything possible to stop it because the longer this goes on the longer people and goods can’t freely move in and out of China. A nationwide outbreak lasting months would result in neighboring countries closing their borders (I heard a week or two ago that Russia already did) and nobody willing to do business with them, it would put a big dent in the economy at the very least.

This is one situation where there are real advantages to having a totalitarian dictatorship.

My question to you is why you would believe 2 totalitarian governments with long and sparkling histories of human rights abuses over the US?

That makes no sense even if you hate the USA

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Who said I believe them? I believe that they might believe what their propaganda outlets are saying, regardless of what the truth is. Hopefully it’s just a case of them using this to their advantage to rile up anti-US sentiment, but if China really believes that this was a bio weapon attack by the US then they might retaliate.

Nobody other than conspiracy theory nutjobs believes this.

That article is an opinion piece and it looks like satire or something equivalent to what Alex Jones would publish. There are no major news outlets reporting stuff like this.

I don’t believe anything, I’m just repeating what the Chinese and Russian media is saying.

There are major news outlets reporting the theories being discussed in the Russian media regarding US involvement, and Russia and China are close allies and neighbors as well so it wouldn’t be a surprise if China is claiming the same thing.

Did you read the English translation of the article? The entire 2nd half is talking about a zombie apocalypse lol. In Chinese, the language and prose used is akin to Alex Jonex screaming, “We’re under siege by COMMIES!”. If you read the site using the google translator, which is more or less sufficient to give you an idea of what is written there, you will see articles like “The Coronavirus is accelerating the cleansing of the undesirables: weak minded people incapable of independent thought!”

I just read the article that I linked, I was skeptical about it but seeing as the BBC is reporting that the Russians are claiming the same thing I figured it there might be some truth to it (as in they are actually claiming that, not that their story is true).

So you can read Chinese? Can you tell us whether or not the Chinese government is actually blaming the US for the coronavirus outbreak?

Yes.

No, definitely not. They will blame the US for taking the opportunity to fuck with them politically and economically while they’re down but they won’t do something that absurd.

What you will read is that every news outlet is owned or partially owned by the government. This is true, including the small ones spreading conspiracy theories. They let shit like this slide instead of censoring them because otherwise the conspiracy nuts will be left without a platform and start thinking there’s a government conspiracy against them. It’s how they balance things, and the CCP isn’t stupid.

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You said this in the post:

Seemed pretty clear to me reading that. At least the way you framed it

Maybe I should be more careful with my wording. What I mean is that I don’t doubt that the Chinese would accuse the US of causing the coronavirus outbreak (although in the last few posts doubt has been raised to that as well), not that I think the US did in fact cause it. I’m not a Kremlin propagandist.

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Exactly what a russian bot would be programmed to say

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No, comrade, no is true.

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On a lighter note, I just remembered reading this:

(SCMP is a Hongkong news outlet)

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This is a similar article from a major online news outlet in China. Run it through google translate and it is more or less saying the same thing.