China Sacrifices a Province to Save the World From Coronavirus • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by unityByFreedom » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

zhongjiewu wrote: post #129

unityByFreedom wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't take much imagination. The head of the WHO does not recommend banning travel to/from China and constantly praises China's actions regarding this virus. Meanwhile, China arrested the very doctors who attempted to alert the public about the virus, and is effectively using quarantine within its own borders to stop its spread. So it makes no sense for the WHO to complain, on behalf of China, about travel bans,…

Correction: not arrest. They were summoned and given written warnings. China is quarantine one Province. Travel between other provinces are still not affected. International travel bans is basically as strict as traveling out of Hubei province, stricter than average travel restrictions in China.

That's an arrest. Arrest does not mean you go to jail. You're taken in for questioning for up to 24-48 hours at which point you must be further charged or released.

> International travel bans is basically as strict as traveling out of Hubei province, stricter than average travel restrictions in China.

The Chinese government censured doctors who sounded the alarm, and you want other countries to follow their advice? I'd say exercising more caution than China advises is appropriate given how little we know about this disease.

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

#132

Post by tim333 » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

DarthGhandi wrote: post #122

tim333 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The World Health Organisation had not said "this isn't a these you currently" or anything to that effect. They are a scientific body that does not consider it it's remit to comment on Chinese politics. At least some Chinese officials suppressed information in the early days.

I'm sorry I made a spelling/grammar mistake, please forgive me. Thanks for quoting it. Now which body do you trust more, also which one says it's not a problem and people shouldn't be worried: The Chinese govt or the World Health Organisation? People panicked about this situation and spreading false information are the ones to worry about, not those with the virus.

Personally I'm more worried about the virus than any scaremongers.

Especially in countries like Indonesia where I am now:

>In Indonesia, Terawan Agus Putranto, the health minister, advised citizens to relax and eschew overtime work to avoid the disease, which has killed more than 360 people and infected more than 17,000 others, mostly in China.

>“To prevent it is very easy as long as your immunity is good,” Mr. Terawan said.

...

>Indonesia has 264 million people, over 2 million tourists from China, but 0 reported cases of coronavirus

By the time the idiot finds it's run amok there will be a lot of unnecessary deaths.

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

#133

Post by AlbertoGP » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

c0restraint wrote: post #121

AlbertoGP wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Neither of those links are working for me right now... first one is “not found” and second one is “doesn’t exist”

Yes, both GlobalTimes and WHO just pulled those links, instead of posting a correction, after the authorities decided to plug him to an ECMO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygen...) machine to defuse the massive uproar in China about his death, then had to declare him dead again.

Others like The Guardian updated their articles, keeping the URL, as the situation changed. After the announcement that he was being kept alive, they added a paragraph at the top of the article explaining that, and later when he was finally confirmed dead updated that note to simply say “Early reports of death of Li Wenliang were retracted, only for doctor to succumb to disease later in day”: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/06/whistleblower-...

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

#134

Post by tim333 » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 3:53 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #132

DarthGhandi wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry I made a spelling/grammar mistake, please forgive me. Thanks for quoting it. Now which body do you trust more, also which one says it's not a problem and people shouldn't be worried: The Chinese govt or the World Health Organisation? People panicked about this situation and spreading false information are the ones to worry about, not those with the virus.

Personally I'm more worried about the virus than any scaremongers. Especially in countries like Indonesia where I am now: >In Indonesia, Terawan Agus Putranto, the health minister, advised citizens to relax and eschew overtime work to avoid the disease, which has killed more than 360 people and infected more than 17,000 others, mostly in China. >“To prevent it is very easy as long as your immunity is good,” Mr. Teraw…

update "In Indonesia – it’s unlikely to spread much as it’s very hot and humid." so maybe ok https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/confere...

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

#135

Post by apatters » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #130

apatters wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair question, it's not that the situation is looking great, but that the media is making it look worse than it currently is. Outside of China the worst hit countries have a little more than two dozen cases and there's only been a single death. It makes me not be afraid of this disease. My chance of getting it is crazy low and if I do I will likely just have a mild to bad flu. Of course things can and probably will g…

It does seem like countries other than China have it under control currently , which is really good news. But the reason for concern isn’t your chances of getting this virus today , which is extremely remote unless you’re in Wuhan. The concern is that China can’t contain this and it’s only a matter of time until it becomes a global pandemic, with the risk of killing millions and overwhelming medical infrastructures.…

To add to the list of stuff that I consider positive/encouraging:

- Out of 270 confirmed non-China cases there's still been only one death. That's a 0.3% death rate. Which raises the question, why is the death rate 2-3% in China? Are we sure it will be that high worldwide? Is it 2-3% because of something unique to the virus or something unique to China (i.e. a delayed response leading to overwhelmed health services).

- I think the histographs in the WHO situation reports (Fig 2 and Fig 3 in the latest one [1]) tell an interesting story which has gone largely unreported. Excluding the situation on the Japanese cruise ship (which is tragic but easy to quarantine), new international infections have been declining since the end of January. That's because the majority of non-Chinese who became infected got it in Wuhan. No one is going in or out Wuhan now, so those cases have basically dropped to zero, and other sources of infection are stable to down.

Obviously vigilance is important and the threat of an international spread needs to be taken seriously. But I think we should at least consider the possibility that this virus may have appeared more dangerous than it actually is because of a poor early response in Wuhan. And while the response can always be better, no one now is screwing up as badly as Wuhan did.

[1] Latest situation report: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati...

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

#136

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

apatters wrote: post #135

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem like countries other than China have it under control currently , which is really good news. But the reason for concern isn’t your chances of getting this virus today , which is extremely remote unless you’re in Wuhan. The concern is that China can’t contain this and it’s only a matter of time until it becomes a global pandemic, with the risk of killing millions and overwhelming medical infrastructures.…

To add to the list of stuff that I consider positive/encouraging: - Out of 270 confirmed non-China cases there's still been only one death. That's a 0.3% death rate. Which raises the question, why is the death rate 2-3% in China? Are we sure it will be that high worldwide? Is it 2-3% because of something unique to the virus or something unique to China (i.e. a delayed response leading to overwhelmed health services).…

Only the worst cases are making it to hospitals in China, while outside of China lost anyone suspected of having the virus is going to get some hospital attention. So that selection bias alone results in the death rate being higher in China than abroad.

Also, a lot of people that get this virus will just think of it as a bad flu and blow it off over a few days. They don’t get counted in the statistics.

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

#137

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

chance_state wrote: post #34

bitbrewer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Did you create your account specifically to parrot CCP propaganda, or is that just a coincidence? Literally every single comment on your profile is pro-CCP, anti-US.

You broke the site guidelines badly with this comment. We ban accounts that do that, so please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

HN is a highly international community. Someone having an opposing view to your own is evidence merely that the community is divided. People here need to assume good faith in the absence of some objective reason not to. Merely disliking what someone else says doesn't come close to an objective reason.

I've written a great deal about this if you or anyone want more explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, because it destroys what this site is supposed to exist for, so please don't do that.

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

#138

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #114

zozbot234 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Internet users are far too quick to assume that someone who disagrees with them can't possibly be holding their views in good faith, and thus far too quick to reach for sinister explanations like communist propaganda. This projection mechanism is destructive of the discourse we want here, so there's a rule in the site guidelines that explicitly ask you not to do it. Please read them and please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

More explanation upthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22276554

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

#139

Post by selimthegrim » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 3:09 AM UTC

mucholove wrote: post #115

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nagin was mayor, not governor (although Blanco’s storm response was questioned by Bush too, to say nothing of her racist ads against Bobby Jindal)

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

#140

Post by guidance » Mon, Feb 10, 2020, 4:04 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #137

chance_state wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you create your account specifically to parrot CCP propaganda, or is that just a coincidence? Literally every single comment on your profile is pro-CCP, anti-US.

You broke the site guidelines badly with this comment. We ban accounts that do that, so please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. HN is a highly international community. Someone having an opposing view to your own is evidence merely that the community is divided. People here need to assume good faith in the absence of some objective reason not to. Merely…

> 'People here need to assume good faith in the absence of some objective reason not to. Merely disliking what someone else says doesn't come close to an objective reason.'

All this sounds good in theory, yet here I am on my second account after the first one 6 weeks ago was shadowbanned in less than 15 posts, simply for expressing my honestly held and well researched opinions.

Meanwhile I'm all the time seeing you on here busting various people's balls for the most ridiculous and trivial of things.

The person you replied to just now, while it's true that I don't agree with their comment (obviously they're wrong) they certainly ought to have the right to express their opinion. And the community as a whole has a right to see that opinion be expressed, to see the opinion itself and see the responses to it, so they can judge for themselves what is or is not the truth, without having a Nanny State/Government picking apart and criticizing every word someone writes.

You really need to lay off the bondage-and-discipline mod mentality. You're driving away good people from this site. Who the hell wants to stay in a place where they are constantly being nagged and harassed and even shadowbanned (one of the cruelest things that can be done to an online forum member) simply for having opinions? What is it about you personally that makes you so qualified to treat people this way?