Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

[wes4dbt]

I know you will ask this question. Maybe you could think about the following questions:
(1) Is this country with 190 million people going abroad every year really restricting press freedom?
(2) Is this country with 854 million Internet users really restricting the Internet?
(3) Is this country that requires all students to learn English really a closed and conservative country?
(The annual number of students in school in China is about 230-250 million, excluding kindergarten children)
(4) Is this country that wants to do business with the whole world really what you think it is?


I'm not trying to argue which country is better. What I want to explain is that the coronavirus epidemic in the United States is caused by politics, and the coronavirus epidemic in other countries is caused by economic and medical conditions.

If you really want my answers then here they are,

1. People going abroad has nothing to do with the freedom of the press. The fact you would use that as an example show a real lack of understanding of what the Freedom of the Press means.
2. Doesn't matter how many people use a Restricted internet, it is still Restricted.
3. Never thought your country was closed. Never thought of Chinese people as overly conservative.
4. Yes.

You act like this thread has lots of people bashing China. I haven't seen it.

What I want to explain is that the coronavirus epidemic in the United States is caused by politics

No, it's caused by the virus. You keep trying to make it about politics.

[dreammanor]

Maybe it make countries look at the global supply system in a different way but as long as price is king and are markets are based upon consumerism i doubt it.

Yes, the world economy will change dramatically. Many beautiful things will be gone forever. It is difficult for the United States to enjoy cheap and high-quality Chinese goods as in the past. It is also difficult for Chinese goods to be unimpeded globally as in the past.

[dreammanor]

If you really want my answers then here they are,

1. People going abroad has nothing to do with the freedom of the press. The fact you would use that as an example show a real lack of understanding of what the Freedom of the Press means.
2. Doesn't matter how many people use a Restricted internet, it is still Restricted.
3. Never thought your country was closed. Never thought of Chinese people as overly conservative.
4. Yes.

You act like this thread has lots of people bashing China. I haven't seen it.



No, it's caused by the virus. You keep trying to make it about politics.

You know nothing about China, you don't even know much about the current state of American politics.

[wes4dbt]

You know nothing about China.

Then why did you ask me the questions?

[dreammanor]

Then why did you ask me the questions?

I 'm not asking you questions, I'm asking you to "reverse thinking".

This virus epidemic is an unfortunate disaster for all mankind, but you will soon find that some people will cause disasters that are much more serious than viruses because of political reasons. You can see it soon.

The global economy will be severely affected.

[dreammanor]

New York has also increased reported deaths, so they've done the same as China. As I noted earlier, some recent analysis suggests that official death tolls tend to be considerably low, at first. This is essentially due to the official death toll just including those deaths plainly attributable to the cause, while those deaths that are not certain for any reason are left out. Frankly, I think this is a pretty responsible way to record deaths, especially when a country/region/state goes back and re-examines the totals after the fact, as both China and New York are doing.

The Chinese government has done what they should do. But China's medical experts who are the chief executives will be the joke around the world.

[wes4dbt]

New York has also increased reported deaths, so they've done the same as China. As I noted earlier, some recent analysis suggests that official death tolls tend to be considerably low, at first. This is essentially due to the official death toll just including those deaths plainly attributable to the cause, while those deaths that are not certain for any reason are left out. Frankly, I think this is a pretty responsible way to record deaths, especially when a country/region/state goes back and re-examines the totals after the fact, as both China and New York are doing.

Yeah I agree. If they were never confirmed to have had the virus then you can't count them. But it seems some counties, like Brazil and India, are doing so little testing it going to be hard to get good useful data. I have this uneasy feeling that sometime there's a conscious effort not to test for political reasons. It probably doesn't matter, there's already plenty of evidence of how infectious and deadly this virus is.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Brazil is a particularly interesting case. The president is actively trying to sabotage the actions of the rest of his government, which is trying to respond as best it can. Even Trump came around to the view that the virus was a bad thing. Bolsanaro has been openly trying to discredit any suggestion that it is a real threat.

Meanwhile, India is working on turning a medical crisis into an ethnic crisis. I'm sure that will go well.

[dreammanor]

Deleted ...

[dreammanor]

Deleted ...

[FunkyDexter]

India is working on turning a medical crisis into an ethnic crisis.

What are you referring to there? (Asking because I genuinely don't know - I suspect it's something I'm simply unaware of)

The global economy will be severely affected.

That's undoubtedly true but (perhaps it's the language barrier) you simply to be implying something underhanded is at play. I don't see that at all. I see nature flexing it's muscles, as nature sometimes does, and mankind responding with some degree of incompetence. There's certainly ways we could handle all this and minimise economic impact but we don't really know what they are and won't until after the event - or we'll never really know. We're all just responding in what we think will be the best way... often mistakenly. But I don't see any deliberate bad actors at play.

[TysonLPrice]

"The Trump administration introduced this week a sweeping relaxation of environmental laws and fines during the coronavirus pandemic. According to new guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), companies will largely be exempt from consequences for polluting the air or water during the outbreak.

In a letter to all government and private sector partners on Thursday, the EPA's Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Susan Parker Bodine said that the agency does not expect power plants, factories or other companies to meet environmental standards and reporting of pollution during this time — and it won't pursue penalties if companies break the rules."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronav...otection-laws/

I truly despise this administration and the man at the top. Using the pandemic like this is sickening to me.

[dreammanor]

The global economy will be severely affected.

That's undoubtedly true but (perhaps it's the language barrier) you simply to be implying something underhanded is at play. I don't see that at all. I see nature flexing it's muscles, as nature sometimes does, and mankind responding with some degree of incompetence. There's certainly ways we could handle all this and minimise economic impact but we don't really know what they are and won't until after the event - or we'll never really know. We're all just responding in what we think will be the best way... often mistakenly. But I don't see any deliberate bad actors at play.

Some experts speculate that in order to shirk responsibility for improper handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, the US government may blame all responsibilities on China, and even some consultants advised to completely decouple China. If that were the case, the world economy would suffer a huge blow, and the negative impact would far exceed COVID-19.

[Shaggy Hiker]

What are you referring to there? (Asking because I genuinely don't know - I suspect it's something I'm simply unaware of)

There's a fairly strong push to blame Muslims for spreading the virus. That plays into the Hindu-nationalist views of Modi and his followers, so it isn't all that surprising, but it will allow people to take out frustrations along ethnic lines.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Some experts speculate that in order to shirk responsibility for improper handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, the US government may blame all responsibilities on China, and even some consultants advised to completely decouple China. If that were the case, the world economy would suffer a huge blow, and the negative impact would far exceed COVID-19.

They speculate? Why bother speculating, it's not even a secret. Trump has been doing his level best to blame China for this. He'd likely be fine blaming somebody else, too, so I don't think it's a China thing, but China is pretty convenient, in this case. He's desperate for the blame to be put on SOMEOBODY other than him, and China fits that pretty well. The only speculation is whether or not it will stick with voters. I'd say that it won't, but you never know.

[wes4dbt]

Just when you think politicians would be worried about saving lives, they come up with this dumb ass idea.

GOP lawmakers introduce bill to allow Americans to sue China over coronavirus

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop...na-coronavirus

Good luck with that. I'm already picking out a new car.

[FunkyDexter]

Well, surely that would require the Chinese government to agree to be meaningful and... nope.

Trump and the GOP are definitely all up for blaming China and, yeah, I can see them cutting ties if they win the next election. Realistically he was picking at that scab before Corona was even a thing, though.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

I feel the UK government has responded in a reasonable if imperfect way.

With the news that Boris was absent for the whole of February from the cobra cabinet briefings which in the case of emergency he should have been chairing, and the fact we are seeing Trump being criticised for the same lack of action during a month when governments where getting a lot of information from the WHO, China and Italy about how contagious and deadly this virus is once again it shows to me how poor the UK's initial response was.

If you listen to any of the experts in pandemic planning, they all say you must act fast and with conviction and in the UK we did neither.

We dithered with what our response should be and when.

Yes once we decided to lockdown the government seems to have acted ok, but by then it was to late and we have been constantly playing catch up with regards to testing and equipment. If we had done anything in February at all in terms of planning for these things, we would be in such a better position and we wouldn't be putting our NHS staff in danger of death due to lack of resources.

I feel that many people look at this issue and say well i personally didn't know how bad this pandemic was going to be so why should the government, rather than realising that they were privy to much more information that we were, and it could and should have been acted upon.

[dreammanor]

Just when you think politicians would be worried about saving lives, they come up with this dumb ass idea.

GOP lawmakers introduce bill to allow Americans to sue China over coronavirus

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop...na-coronavirus

Good luck with that. I'm already picking out a new car.

Yes, maybe the US government is already considering completely decoupling from China.

When the outbreak of the new coronavirus was first reported in China, the US Secretary of Commerce said that the outbreak of the new coronavirus was beneficial to the United States and that it would help the manufacturing industry return to the United States. Perhaps 10 years later, the United States will replace China as the world's largest manufacturing country. At that time, the content of the negotiations between the United States and China might become "how to let China reduce tariffs."

[dreammanor]

Fangzhouzi(Fangshimin) --- Google Translator

Twitter(1): Stanford University spot-checked the blood of 3,300 residents in Silicon Valley (Santa Clarke County) in early April, inferring that there were 2.49% -4.16% of the residents who had been infected with the new coronavirus at that time and had produced antibodies. Infected, 50-85 times the number of confirmed cases. To date, a total of 69 people in the county have died of new coronavirus infection. From this, it can be calculated that the death rate of new coronavirus infection is about 0.1%, which is equivalent to influenza.

Twitter(2): Several cases of new coronavirus infection occurred in a homeless shelter in Boston. The hospital tested all 397 homeless people living there and found 146 positives, none of which were symptomatic. The US Navy has to test all 4,800 officers and soldiers of the USS Roosevelt. It has tested 94% and found more than 600 positives, and 60% have no symptoms. The proportion of asymptomatic infections in some populations is much higher than expected.

Twitter(3): The results of the spot check of Gangelt town in Germany: about 400 families and about 1,000 people were selected. The results of the first batch of 500 people were as follows, 14% of the blood had antibodies against the new coronavirus (that was once infected), and 2% of the new coronavirus nucleic acid The test was positive, and a total of 15% were infected with the new coronavirus, and the infection mortality rate was calculated to be 0.37%. The author believes that although the 15% infection rate has not reached the group immunization, but it has been able to delay the spread of the virus, it should consider gradually deregulating.

Twitter(4): The General Hospital of Massachusetts Institute of Technology sampled the blood of 200 passers-by on the streets of Chelsea Township, and the only requirement was that it could not be a confirmed case. It was found that 64 of them (32%) had antibodies against the new coronavirus. The town has a population of about 40,000, 712 confirmed cases and 39 deaths. If the results of spot checks can be extrapolated, 13,000 people in the town have been infected, and the case fatality rate is 0.3%.

Twitter(5): The opinion of Professor Giesecke, the first chief scientist of the European Center for Disease Control and the Swedish government consultant: "The closure of the city" is not based on evidence. The correct policy is to protect the elderly and the weak and gradually lead to group immunization; the final results will be similar in all countries; New coronavirus disease is a mild disease, similar to influenza, and the actual fatality rate is about 0.1%, because the new disease is scary; if the antibody is surveyed, at least 50% of the United Kingdom and Sweden will be infected.

[wes4dbt]

Well, surely that would require the Chinese government to agree to be meaningful and... nope.

Trump and the GOP are definitely all up for blaming China and, yeah, I can see them cutting ties if they win the next election. Realistically he was picking at that scab before Corona was even a thing, though.

Don't see that happening. That large of a supply chain can't just be cut without wide spread shortages and increased prices. The US is great at saying things like "Buy American" but when their pocket book starts shrinking or they can't get what they want they'll forget all about buy American. Also, our country has moved away from a lot of industries. Before the virus we had very low unemployment. Who is going to be working all these new jobs?

The US might start the process of moving away from dependency on China but that'll take years and my guess is that the jobs still wont be coming back to the US. Well that's my guess, for what it's worth. lol

[TysonLPrice]

Yes, maybe the US government is already considering completely decoupling from China.

Now why would Trump do that? As he has said over and over again; China is paying us billions of dollars in tariffs

[dreammanor]

Now why would Trump do that? As he has said over and over again; China is paying us billions of dollars in tariffs

Trump is a businessman, he just wants China's money. But some Republican Congressmen want China's life(want to kill China), they want to be completely decoupled from China to completely curb China's development and rise. The thinking of these lawmakers has remained in the Cold War.

[TysonLPrice]

Trump is a businessman, he just wants China's money. But some Republican Congressmen want China's life(want to kill China), they want to be completely decoupled from China to completely curb China's development and rise. The thinking of these lawmakers has remained in the Cold War.

I was being sarcastic...Trump keeps telling the lie that China pays the US billions of dollars in tariffs when it is American citizens paying.

[wes4dbt]

Trump is a businessman, he just wants China's money. But some Republican Congressmen want China's life(want to kill China), they want to be completely decoupled from China to completely curb China's development and rise. The thinking of these lawmakers has remained in the Cold War.

I think you over estimate how much importance China really has to American politicians. Politicians say what ever it takes to win votes, normally China is of very little interest to the American people/voters and American businesses make a lot of money because of China so they're not complaining to their politicians, But because of the virus China is in the news and on voters minds. So now the politicians start talking about China. To say our congress wants China's life or to kill China sounds like something that would be written on a propaganda poster. China's development and rise is not in the hands of the US, it's in the hands of it's government.

[dreammanor]

I think you over estimate how much importance China really has to American politicians. Politicians say what ever it takes to win votes, normally China is of very little interest to the American people/voters and American businesses make a lot of money because of China so they're not complaining to their politicians, But because of the virus China is in the news and on voters minds. So now the politicians start talking about China. To say our congress wants China's life or to kill China sounds like something that would be written on a propaganda poster. China's development and rise is not in the hands of the US, it's in the hands of it's government.

Maybe you can't imagine how much China pays attention to the United States. The vast majority of Americans may not be interested in paying attention to China, but the entire Chinese society (from the government to the public) is extremely concerned about the United States, especially the Chinese democrats. Democrats in China regard the United States as a beacon for human beings. They admire the United States extremely and hate their own country china. They understand every detail of the United States, including the American election. The United States also provides a lot of funds to these democrats every year to let them tout the United States and engage in some anti-government campaigns.

On this planet, the development of any country must consider the influence of the United States, especially the country with the second highest comprehensive strength. The United States invests hundreds of billions of dollars each year in supporting government opposition figures from other countries.

The United States hopes to maintain an absolute advantage over other countries, but China's development now exceeds the expectations of the United States, so the United States hopes to contain/suppress China's development.

Edit:

I very much hope that the United States will throw China far behind in the following ways:

More sophisticated technology, stronger military strength, better social welfare, more democracy and more openness. (Only in this way can the United States truly defeat China completely)

But the actual situation is not like this. Now, the United States is relying more on rumours, discrediting, encouraging and supporting the Chinese opposition to launch violent activities against the Chinese government to curb China's development.

Even in the face of COVID-19, a huge disaster for all mankind, the US government still puts more energy on slandering China, rather than working with the world to save American lives.

[wes4dbt]

Even in the face of COVID-19, a huge disaster for all mankind, the US government still puts more energy on slandering China, rather than working with the world to save American lives.

You do seem to be an expert on slandering

[FunkyDexter]

With the news that Boris was absent for the whole of February from the cobra cabinet briefings which in the case of emergency he should have been chairing, and the fact we are seeing Trump being criticised for the same lack of action during a month when governments where getting a lot of information from the WHO, China and Italy about how contagious and deadly this virus is once again it shows to me how poor the UK's initial response was.

There have been a lot of revelations over the weekend and I'm starting to come around.

I think I still disagree with you over the timing of the lockdown but I'm less adamant. There were broadly two strategies available. Prevention or herd immunity. We went for the latter. That looks like the wrong choice right now as countries that went for the former are starting to be able to lift their lockdowns but their death rates risk rising to meet ours as they do so. And if you take prevention as your strategy then you're implicitly acknowledging that the only way this ends is with a vaccine and there's no way to predict when that will come (someone mentioned AIDs earlier - take a look at how long that one took to produce).

Still, pursuing herd immunity means taking damage up front (which I don't want to trivialise - it means real people dying) but it also means you should be preparing your medical systems for the coming surge and it's increasingly clear we utterly failed to do so. We weren't buying in testing ingredients and PPE, we weren't repurposing our own production capacity and we didn't start building hospitals and asking NHS retirees to come back until after the virus started to bite. It's increasingly obvious that we stuck our fingers in our ears and did nothing.

At least we don't seem to be trying to blame everyone else a la Trump but we do still seem to be failing to acknowledge that those failings are even a thing and we certainly aren't an "exemplar" for the world.

[wes4dbt]

I agree both our countries lagged and were thoroughly unprepared. Honestly I'm not upset about that part. It's a tremendous decision to shut down a country and I can understand trying to avoid doing so. But I'm very upset at the endless lies, misinformation and blaming others that spews from Trumps mouth. It's so cowardly and harmful.

I still have no real clear picture of why we are having such a hard time ramping up the testing. You hear a wide array of excuses, not enough swabs, reagents, man power, bad tests. I wish someone would give us a comprehensive picture of the situation and then what the're plan is to solve the problem. I think this would go a long way to help calm people. People can be incredibly strong when they know what they're facing. The unknown makes people scared.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

there were broadly two strategies available. Prevention or herd immunity. We went for the latter.

There is increasing evidence that Scientists where saying early on that the Governments herd immunity strategy was not a strategy at all but a failure of strategy, and that usually it is achieved with a vaccine not by letting a virus run wild through a population, but putting that aside for a moment.

it also means you should be preparing your medical systems for the coming surge and it's increasingly clear we utterly failed to do so

This is what i feel has been the biggest failure, the failure to do any planning or mitigation for what was about to hit or Health service.

Every expert says you must be doing testing and contact tracing on fairly big numbers if we want to come out of lockdown in anyway successfully and my fear at the moment is our government still seems to be figuring this bit out when it should have had clear plans already in place, they have been reactive for to long rather than getting ahead of the situation and being proactive.

[dreammanor]

You do seem to be an expert on slandering

Am I wrong? I'm talking about a basic common sense that most people know, but it seems that you don't know anything about it. You are a very strange person, not only do you know nothing about other countries, you also know nothing about your own country. There is no need to continue the dialogue between us.

[TysonLPrice]

I think you over estimate how much importance China really has to American politicians.

Trump has been using china as a foil or friend depending on shifting winds since day one. His great tariff war, Xi and him being best friends, "other" politicians allowing the US to get ripped off by China for years, to the virus now. I would say China is VERY important to Trump's politics.

Next thing you know Trump will be saying China is paying for the wall instead of the US military

[FunkyDexter]

To be fair, China are the world's leading experts in building walls and have been since the 7th century. Trump could probably learn a lot from them on that front. Mind you, even that one failed in the end.

[TysonLPrice]

Mind you, even that one failed in the end.

That is the lesson Trump should learn from them...

[wes4dbt]

Trump has been using china as a foil or friend depending on shifting winds since day one. His great tariff war, Xi and him being best friends, "other" politicians allowing the US to get ripped off by China for years, to the virus now. I would say China is VERY important to Trump's politics.

Yes Trump uses China in his politics but that's just one US politician and not representative of the vast majority of our politicians normally. It's only now because of the virus that others have starting using China in their politics. My point was our politicians top priority wasn't to "kill China".

[wes4dbt]

Every expert says you must be doing testing and contact tracing on fairly big numbers if we want to come out of lockdown in anyway successfully and my fear at the moment is our government still seems to be figuring this bit out when it should have had clear plans already in place, they have been reactive for to long rather than getting ahead of the situation and being proactive.

I feel the exact same way. I do think progress is being made and we will get there soon. But as I said before, I'm having a hard time understanding why it has been taking so long. Maybe it couldn't be helped but I have a feeling that politics has slowed the process.

[TysonLPrice]

Yes Trump uses China in his politics but that's just one US politician and not representative of the vast majority of our politicians normally. It's only now because of the virus that others have starting using China in their politics. My point was our politicians top priority wasn't to "kill China".

That one US politician happens to be the leader of the United States and the republicans will do whatever he says. He addresses it on an almost daily basis in his nightly campaign addresses. I call that a big part of US politics. I get your point about "our politicians top priority wasn't to "kill China" though. I agree. Most of them probably wish Trump would shut up about China.

[FunkyDexter]

I personally don't think Trump will be cutting off China. Trump talks a big talk but his opinion changes faster than the Flash at the local Lido and there's rarely much follow through. I suspect you're going to see lots more insults, plenty of accusations flying backward and a trade war at the end of it. Trump likes trade wars. He's not so keen on going beyond that - so far at least.

And China's far from his only foil. So far I've heard China, the WHO ("great band, folks... America can be proud... loved that Eleanor Rigby number"), globalists, the democrats, the liberal media, Cuomo personally, anyone who tried to impeach him... the list is pretty much endless. I wouldn't be surprised to find I was on it.

@Dreamanor, I think you're being thin skinned but I can understand why. Having the most powerful man on the plant ("great power... the biggliest... the Chyneese are in awe of my bigly power... we have the best Corona, folks... get it from Mexico... it goes great with a slice of Lime disease") insulting you on a daily basis is bound to wind anyone up. And there certainly are noises about cutting off China completely. But you do seem to projecting Trump and the GOP's rhetoric onto the members of this forum who really aren't expressing those views. Most of us think China was actually pretty transparent and behaved pretty well during all this and we think the noises you're hearing from Trump etc. are mostly just bluster. Scary bluster, but still just bluster.

[Shaggy Hiker]

If Trump didn't have China, he'd find someone else. China should be pretty proud of this, really. The fact that Trump uses them, primarily, is a sign of Chinese prestige. He's gone after EVERYBODY, but most of them are too meaningless to be useful for him. He needs a plausible enemy, because he doesn't do well without one. He can't use Russia, since he has such a man-crush on Putin, so he uses China. He'd like to like Xi, so he's a bit torn, but ultimately, he needs an enemy even more.

[reexre]

Nobel Prize
Luc Montagnier
on COVID

(English subtitles available)


Full interview here