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China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus

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

#111
post #93
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know about those numbers but I think deaths may be considerably understated due to them only counting people who have been properly tested for coronavirus, found to have it and then died but there are probably many others who have died without being able to get a test such as the grandmother mentioned in the article. It's a bit worrying there are no figures for that - the local officials must have an idea how…

^ This exactly. They may be accurately reporting the actual number of diagnosed cases (which I'm on the fence about), but they are certainly not reporting "suspected" cases. I understand that's hard to discern, but they should have a decent idea about the average mortality rate in the area, and be able to see an uptick that will give them a rough estimate.

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

#112

> China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus Bullshit. The world would have been like exactly like Hubei, and Hubei no different if they didn't lock it down. There was no "Sacrifices" Putting in curfew reduced deaths if anything, they also added doctors and built hospitals. If the 'sacrifice' is economic because of curfews, then fair enough, but they do not have deaths or illness worse because of…

It is not entirely true. This sacrifice entails two things. On one side, without a lockdown, people in Human can seek medical help in other cities and provinces when they get sick. After a lockdown, local medical resources are in severe shortage hence higher death rate. On the other side, it limits the spread of the disease for the good of other provinces and hence the rest of the world. If this isn't sacrifice, I'm not sure what sacrifice is.

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

#113
post #111
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about those numbers but I think deaths may be considerably understated due to them only counting people who have been properly tested for coronavirus, found to have it and then died but there are probably many others who have died without being able to get a test such as the grandmother mentioned in the article. It's a bit worrying there are no figures for that - the local officials must have an idea how…

^ This exactly. They may be accurately reporting the actual number of diagnosed cases (which I'm on the fence about), but they are certainly not reporting "suspected" cases. I understand that's hard to discern, but they should have a decent idea about the average mortality rate in the area, and be able to see an uptick that will give them a rough estimate.

Honestly I think it is hard job to get an accurate reporting giving the scale of the problem. We are talking about a single digit accuracy at the scale of 10k+. Even in H1N1 outbreaks, the medical visits and death tolls in the US was estimated with a wide band. That being said, the death of un-confirmed patients could be intentionally ignored to make the problem look not so big. But this is not a unique thing to authoritarian governments.

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

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

Please don't do this here.

Don’t post an explanation for why that account only comments on articles about China and tries to paint the CCP and Huawei in a favorable light? Don’t you think a real account would sometimes talk about something else?

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

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if one is being reckless with fire and accidentally burned their own house down, but they managed to put it out before spreading to the neighbors. Can people really hail that person as a hero?

Where in my response am I hailing anybody as a hero? My main point is that HN (including the original poster) seems to assume that the CCP is some all-seeing, perfectly coordinated entity, when it's actually 100 million people (!) and even party apparatchiks have wildly differing agendas and levels of competence.

Not sure if I am the original poster—but if I am—I don't see the CCP as some all-seeing, perfectly coordinated entity.

And I also agree with you—that you are on balance pretty fair.

Like you said—the response from Beijing was "draconian" and the provincial authorities couldn't stand to report the fact that "something was rotten in the state of Wuhan/Hubei."

Why? Because there are however some characteristics to this entity—which is basic disregard for humans as individuals and community and a desperate desire for sycophancy.

Alarmingly—the CCP disregard for individuals and community is spreading—and it's too often excused by people—like the poster below me who says "Event the US government the hurricane response wrong."

By casting a wide net—and lower our standard as humans. For example...

The Trump administration was wrong on purpose for the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico because they have similar CCP-like viewpoints and motivations. In New Orleans, for Katrina—you had Ray Nagin as governor who has been convicted on several counts of fraud. These are all people who don't care to shoulder community and build it up—however slow and difficult it might be to reconcile. We need to raise the bar.

The place with the most antibodies to this kind of thinking are some places in Europe which try to appeal to our human instincts as opposed to fueling our "Animal Instincts" (and yes, I am referring to that mid-2000s book on US Stock Market people).

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

#116

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…

For those interested in knowing more about this, from people that have lived in China for a long time, had families there, and have daily contact with others that still live there, I recommend these videos: “Coronavirus: the lies and the truths” (29th of January) “Let’s look at a timeline of what’s happened to see how slowly it has been dealt with, and how the information was actively suppressed.” https://www.youtube…

This just in: that doctor that raised the first alarm and was silenced back in December has died from it:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178792.shtml

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1225440373880782848

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

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those interested in knowing more about this, from people that have lived in China for a long time, had families there, and have daily contact with others that still live there, I recommend these videos: “Coronavirus: the lies and the truths” (29th of January) “Let’s look at a timeline of what’s happened to see how slowly it has been dealt with, and how the information was actively suppressed.” https://www.youtube…

This just in: that doctor that raised the first alarm and was silenced back in December has died from it: https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1178792.shtml https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1225440373880782848

[deleted]

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

#118

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.

Curious as to what's making you feel better from those reports. Reading today's, the documented cases in China grew 15% in the last 24 hours, and cases outside China grew by almost the same. It seems highly unlikely that this is going to be able to be contained, even assuming that China's numbers are remotely accurate.

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

#119

> China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus Bullshit. The world would have been like exactly like Hubei, and Hubei no different if they didn't lock it down. There was no "Sacrifices" Putting in curfew reduced deaths if anything, they also added doctors and built hospitals. If the 'sacrifice' is economic because of curfews, then fair enough, but they do not have deaths or illness worse because of…

It is not entirely true. This sacrifice entails two things. On one side, without a lockdown, people in Human can seek medical help in other cities and provinces when they get sick. After a lockdown, local medical resources are in severe shortage hence higher death rate. On the other side, it limits the spread of the disease for the good of other provinces and hence the rest of the world. If this isn't sacrifice, I'm…

> After a lockdown, local medical resources are in severe shortage hence higher death rate

No, this is false. Supplies and doctors still came in after lock down. Lots of them because they were not needed elsewhere.

> On one side, without a lockdown, people in Human can seek medical help in other cities and provinces when they get sick.

This is also false. As soon as they leave they spread the virus any other hospital will become swamped and just the same.

There sacrifice is they don't get to spread the virus and make everyone else as bad as they have it. Not quite true.... They would have it worse since they will lose resources if it spreads. But they do miss the comfort of being the same by not spreading it. That is all.

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

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which people have speculated, and on what grounds? Anyone can speculate anything about FEMA's disaster plans to make internment of arbitrarily large numbers of people sound like a totally normal thing.

Look, there's a lot of material on this already, I'm not making up anything. Just google FEMA internment camps.

If you google that, you get right wing propaganda, the kind of sites which also claim Obama is a Kenyan-Muslim-time-travelling-terrorist.

But maybe you are one of them, now you're going to jump and down telling us FEMA is the Waffen-SS.

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