Live data from Hacker News

China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

bloomberg.com

41–50 of 140 posts

Re: China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

#42
post #5
post #2

Well 2019-ncov is probably here to stay permanently, so while I appreciate the effort to slow it down, they're not going to save the world from it quite yet.

If they delay the spread it gives the world time to produce vaccines.

We don't have a SARS (a related coronavirus) vaccine yet .... it's likely going to take a while, why we need to be even more careful about keeping it contained

Re: China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

#43
post #10
post #2

Well 2019-ncov is probably here to stay permanently, so while I appreciate the effort to slow it down, they're not going to save the world from it quite yet.

What are you basing this statement on? or is it just the flu of Reddit-inspired speculations on HN?

I think that this article (https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/06/h...) illustrate that it is very likely that the symptoms in most people are mild and these people are not seeking medical advice while spreading it around them.

If this is really the case, it is going to be very difficult to contain it.

Re: China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

#44

Just dropping a link here, anyone who is concerned about the coronavirus and has opinions about it should imo read the daily situation reports from the WHO: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... In 5 minutes a day you will have a better informed perspective than what any news sites provide, my own alarm has lessened considerably after reading these.

I just ran across this link (https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594) suggesting that the official numbers coming out of China may be significantly understated. I'm not familiar with the site, though - are they a reliable news source? Not sure how much credence to give it.

Re: China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

#45

The amount of virulent (pun intended) hatred of the Chinese government really shows here. Can't say it's not well deserved but you can at least give them some credit for the quarantine.

Agreed, local govt was very poor, federal has been excellent and I’m probably the biggest China critic here

Re: China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

#46

The amount of virulent (pun intended) hatred of the Chinese government really shows here. Can't say it's not well deserved but you can at least give them some credit for the quarantine.

However, it's futile unless it reflects in our purchase (and employer) preferences.

Re: China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

#47

Sacrifice my ass. Their incompetence led to a province and its people being hung out to dry. They let this problem get out of hand—and now the people there suffer. How? They ignored the doctors who attempted to report the problem on New Year’s day. They (the CCP) take no precautionary measures until their political regime is threatened. So many things done wrong—including maintaining wet market controls up a few year…

Do not agree. Government everywhere makes mistakes under emergencies. Just look at past responses to hurricanes in the US and the current wildfire in Australia. Maybe you could say every government is incompetent. But the fact is that China reported the cases very early to WHO, get the genes mapped very quickly, and decisively locked down Hebei. So I would say so far China has shown competence and resolve, against a…

His point is that their #1 priority was keep this under wraps instead of fixing it as soon as possible, even if it meant more people had to learn about it to protect themselves and not have the virus spread.

Coronavirus has disrupted many businesses in China, and I think the government knew this would happen if more people found out about it. So their priority was not getting a big economic hit, not solving the issue.

This is a good post on what happened, but there are others like it if you want to dig deeper on how they tried to cover it up:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/coronavirus-dis...

I'll just copy these 2 paragraphs here to address your "China responded quickly" comment:

> To be sure, at first glance, China’s government has appeared to be more forthcoming about the latest outbreak. But, although the first case was reported on December 8, the Wuhan municipal health commission didn’t issue an official notice until several weeks later. And, since then, Wuhan officials have downplayed the seriousness of the disease and deliberately sought to suppress news coverage.

That notice maintained that there was no evidence that the new illness could be transmitted among humans, and claimed that no health-care workers had been infected. The commission repeated these claims on January 5, though 59 cases had been confirmed by then. Even after the first death was reported on January 11, the commission continued to insist that there was no evidence that it could be transmitted among humans or that health-care workers had been affected.

Re: China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

#48

Sacrifice my ass. Their incompetence led to a province and its people being hung out to dry. They let this problem get out of hand—and now the people there suffer. How? They ignored the doctors who attempted to report the problem on New Year’s day. They (the CCP) take no precautionary measures until their political regime is threatened. So many things done wrong—including maintaining wet market controls up a few year…

Do not agree. Government everywhere makes mistakes under emergencies. Just look at past responses to hurricanes in the US and the current wildfire in Australia. Maybe you could say every government is incompetent. But the fact is that China reported the cases very early to WHO, get the genes mapped very quickly, and decisively locked down Hebei. So I would say so far China has shown competence and resolve, against a…

Here in Australia the general sentiment is that the response has been good relative to the magnitude of the fires. At some point nature overwhelms any government.

Re: China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

#50

Sacrifice my ass. Their incompetence led to a province and its people being hung out to dry. They let this problem get out of hand—and now the people there suffer. How? They ignored the doctors who attempted to report the problem on New Year’s day. They (the CCP) take no precautionary measures until their political regime is threatened. So many things done wrong—including maintaining wet market controls up a few year…

Do not agree. Government everywhere makes mistakes under emergencies. Just look at past responses to hurricanes in the US and the current wildfire in Australia. Maybe you could say every government is incompetent. But the fact is that China reported the cases very early to WHO, get the genes mapped very quickly, and decisively locked down Hebei. So I would say so far China has shown competence and resolve, against a…

They were very late even in informing the people in Wuhan or Hubei. Even after everyone in the West knew about this new SARS-like virus, people there were still going around with no face masks or anything, no precautions at all. Disgraceful and a total failure.
Post reply on HN