Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US • Hacker News Board

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#261

Post by _gccu » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #222

_gccu wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A flight is 12 hours. Considering it's a highly urgent need for a very unique circumstance... we're not shipping, IDK, keychains or something.

Bulky non-perishable packaged manufactured goods are not shipped by air! It would add quite a bit to the cost of this gesture to rent out three 747s for shipping it. This is pointless. If the fastest shipping method available took a month, you'd be imagining crafty sick Chinese people stowed away, breathing on the masks for the entire journey. You have a sickness, but it may not be COVID-19...

You realize that there are countries that are in complete lockdown, right? These are not normal, but very serious times. If all a country had to do was pay for the use of 3 full 747s, for a mere 12 hour flight, to get a solution to save countless lives .. sounds logical to me that they'd expedite the delivery.

Due to the fact that is a very serious, urgent, global pandemic. It blows my mind that during this global crisis, you think that it would take a whole month just to transport life saving medical / health equipment. We're not talking about shipping handbag accessories on Amazon's third party marketplace here, Nancy.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#262

Post by alisonatwork » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #256

alisonatwork wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's not clear, but i live in China and experience the result of these "politicos being who they are" first hand. This virus could and should have been stopped before it got out of Hubei. The CPC have no excuse for their ineptitude when they already went through a comparable outbreak in 2003 with SARS. We have evidence that acting earlier was an option, because the party chief of Qianjiang (a city in Hubei) u…

"it's important that we do not forget how this crisis started and who was responsible for it. Otherwise, how will we learn to avoid the next one?" Here is the divine revelation - it had started in China. How will it help you when it starts in China or elsewhere next time? And again you've completely ignored the fact that the rest of the world was happily ignoring all dangers and kept borders opened for goods and peop…

Please try to understand where i am coming from. I live in China and i am concerned that our political elite, who just six weeks ago were being widely blamed for causing this outbreak, have silenced all dissent and are now pushing a new narrative that paints themselves as the heroes.

Perhaps the propaganda has not been as successful overseas, but here in China it is gaining legs. Having a proud party member donate gifts to foreign countries is very much a part of changing the narrative on this crisis. The government here is allowing the conspiracy theory to spread that the origins of the virus were foreign, and that it was all just a stroke of bad luck that Wuhan got hit first. But - never fear - Xi Jinping rode in to save the day! This is an extremely damaging take on what happened. Whether you support the one-party state or not, it bodes poorly for the future of China to have leaders who cannot accept responsibility for their mistakes.

The CPC had the opportunity to learn from SARS, and it appears they did not. They now have an opportunity to learn from COVID-19, but if the story is twisted in such a way that people only remember the great success of Xi and the great magnanimity of people like Jack Ma, then that will not happen.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#263

Post by FpUser » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #262

FpUser wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it's important that we do not forget how this crisis started and who was responsible for it. Otherwise, how will we learn to avoid the next one?" Here is the divine revelation - it had started in China. How will it help you when it starts in China or elsewhere next time? And again you've completely ignored the fact that the rest of the world was happily ignoring all dangers and kept borders opened for goods and peop…

Please try to understand where i am coming from. I live in China and i am concerned that our political elite, who just six weeks ago were being widely blamed for causing this outbreak, have silenced all dissent and are now pushing a new narrative that paints themselves as the heroes. Perhaps the propaganda has not been as successful overseas, but here in China it is gaining legs. Having a proud party member donate gi…

Frankly I do not give a flying hoot about political intricacies of China. If you live there and looking to blame your leaders be my guest.

I am way more concerned about what is happening in Western hemisphere where I live. All I know is we've allowed major f'ck up all on our own.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#264

Post by robomartin » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

DarthGhandi wrote: post #6

wollstonecraft wrote: post #2

"Test kits" are just for sample collection. You still need throughput on a qPCR machine to get results.

Shouldn't there be hundreds of labs with these machines though? The United States government spends far more on healthcare than any other nation on Earth. That's not including private health costs. South Korea has the capacity to test 20,000 per day and has 1/6th the population.

The most important factor isn't how quickly one can process the test (so long as it doesn't take an excessive amount of time) or how many, but rather how many false positives you get.

The CDC, in a press conference, explained that tests in places like South Korea are producing 3% to 4% false positives. Our tests are in the 1% to 2% range.

This difference in false positives can have massive consequences as infection spreads. Doubling your false positives could easily overwhelm the medical system. Which in turn, could increase fatality.

And then there's the secondary effects, which Italy is sadly experiencing, as the medical system overloads doctors are having to choose who they simply let die. There are reports of stroke patients going without much attention in Italy because of precisely this issue.

If hospitals can't take care of people because they are overloaded due to administering large numbers of tests with double the false positive outcomes, more people die.

When things truly matter there is no substitute for quality and performance. Quantity and speed are not always the most important factors.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#265

Post by meowface » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #244

meowface wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? If the American government were doing this, I would think the exact same thing. And America has in fact done similar things many times in the past. Of course it's PR. It's always PR, probably regardless of what superpower's government is involved. The only difference here is that the Chinese government has more control over and knowledge of what private citizens are doing, so it can be difficult to disentangle…

This "us vs them" mentality with strong whiff of paranoia. Conceiving ulterior motive and talking as if that was the most important motive. Somehow more true than all other parallel motives. I don't see this kind of thinking much out of US and perhaps Russia. Maybe it's taint of cold war. Maybe it runs even deeper in the culture.

I would think the same if it were the US or Russian government. Why do you think the US invested so much into feeding East Germany? It was to save lives, to regrow an economy, and for PR against the Soviets.

I'm a massive conspiracy theory skeptic and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to debunk them, but this is just how geopolitics work, have always worked, and will likely still work for centuries or millennia to come. Many actions have multiple motives.

Also, I'm just saying it's a possibility. It's just hard to know since it's so hard to separate government and private activities in such a place.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#266

Post by meowface » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

antonvs wrote: post #242

meowface wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? If the American government were doing this, I would think the exact same thing. And America has in fact done similar things many times in the past. Of course it's PR. It's always PR, probably regardless of what superpower's government is involved. The only difference here is that the Chinese government has more control over and knowledge of what private citizens are doing, so it can be difficult to disentangle…

Do you feel the same way about Bill Gates' philanthropic work? Is what Gates does also "always PR"? Both of these men could afford to retire to a private island (or chain of islands) and never be heard from again. You think they do what they do primarily for PR reasons?

No. I would if I thought Bill Gates represented the US government, but I don't think he does.

The problem here is it's so hard to separate private and governmental action in China. Jack Ma may not have even been able to do this without their approval or prodding, possibly. Maybe he did, but there's no good way to know. Most other large countries don't have such powerful and expansive governments.

This is about geopolitics, not philanthropy. I think most philanthropists aren't doing things for PR, and for the ones who are, it's probably a minor, extra motive. But all bets are off when the philanthropist may be an ultra-powerful nation-state.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#267

Post by nojvek » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

incompatible wrote: post #95

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #7

Wow. Chinese citizen sends humanitarian aid to the U.S. What a queer situation.

Seems strange that anybody would feel the need, given how the US is one of the richest countries, trumpets it's own abilities endlessly, and has an official policy of "America first". I.e., it's surely capable of making its own virus test kits and face masks, if it could be bothered.

> it's surely capable of making its own virus test kits and face masks, if it could be bothered.

American manufacturing industries are dying. We know how to make software but making hardware is slowly fading out. Most of our stuff comes from China. China knows how to make the world.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#268

Post by scotty79 » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #265

scotty79 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "us vs them" mentality with strong whiff of paranoia. Conceiving ulterior motive and talking as if that was the most important motive. Somehow more true than all other parallel motives. I don't see this kind of thinking much out of US and perhaps Russia. Maybe it's taint of cold war. Maybe it runs even deeper in the culture.

I would think the same if it were the US or Russian government. Why do you think the US invested so much into feeding East Germany? It was to save lives, to regrow an economy, and for PR against the Soviets. I'm a massive conspiracy theory skeptic and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to debunk them, but this is just how geopolitics work, have always worked, and will likely still work for centuries or millenn…

> Many actions have multiple motives.

That's what I'm saying. And this specific way of thinking is focusing on the worst of the motives and treating them as if they were the main motives, the most important motives, the most worthwhile motives to observe and point out, maybe the only motives worth mentioning.

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#269

Post by scotty79 » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

_gccu wrote: post #260

scotty79 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sound logic leads to garbage conclusion when it starts with false premises. Who knew it's really worth to learn about things you'd like to talk.

If you pay close attention, you actually didn't refute my logic at all but called it "garbage" and "false". Ok man, you need to learn how to think through stuff and come back when you're ready.

I personally did not refute your logic because it doesn't matter if it's correct or not. It assumes falsehood and leads to "garbage" conclusions. Why would anyone want to consider what implication chain have you constructed between false and false?

Re: Jack Ma to send 500K coronavirus test kits, 1M face masks to US

#270

Post by scotty79 » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

_gccu wrote: post #259

scotty79 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you expect to wear any of the .5 million masks in less then 3 days after they were touched by the last person who touched them before packaging?

Flight here is 12 hours. So you don't think it's possible? Why?

Yes. I think it's impossible because loading things on planes take time and putting them in boxes before that takes even more time. And driving them to the airport and from the airport takes time. And taking them out of boxes takes time.

If you did everything as quick as possible maybe you'd have a chance to lick a thing that came from china faster then three days after last Chinese person licked it.

In practice. When you have .5 mln mass manufactured items you have no chance.

Also, on cardboard the virus stays potent only fo 24 hours.