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

#61

Post by soneil » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

maest wrote: post #50

soneil wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also sent similar to Iran, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Spain - which makes it look a little less so, at least to my eye.

It's amazing how much impact leaving this information out has.

Indeed. On it's own, it looks like .. I'm not sure "willy-waving" translates into American well.

But once you realise they're sending them everywhere, it makes it look more like they've ramped production up to stupifying numbers (which is China's speciality afterall), and have realised their value in goodwill is far beyond their dollar value.

(or, yes, propaganda - there's not a lot of real difference between PR, propaganda and goodwill. Ultimately, doing something good because the optics benefit you, is still doing something good.)

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

#62

Post by taiwanboy » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #48

guardiangod wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should see what some of my Chinese relatives/friends are forwarding in WeChat- 1. CIA created the virus and released the virus in China as a test. 2. (In Chinese there's no word for 'flu', only 'cold', or 'transmissible cold'.) The 'cold' virus originated in US last year and killed more than 10k Americans before US sent special force to Wuhan to infect us Chinese! Even the head of CDC admitted it (see article). 3…

Sigh. Each dumb conspiracy theory in Chinese social media has an equal and opposite dumb conspiracy theory in American social media.

The CIA rumour is no less raised by the CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY spokesman https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-official-says-us-arm...

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

#63

Post by knzhou » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

hawk_ wrote: post #25

_bxg1 wrote: post #8

Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis. I'm not even sure it's incorrect.

It's concerted effort by Chinese establishment to whitewash their handling of the whole thing. They even want to pretend that the virus didn't even originate in China! https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/13/asia/china-coronavirus-us...

You can't just declare everything that any low-ranking Chinese bureaucrat does to be an "effort by Chinese establishment". This is nationalistic flame-bait.

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

#64

Post by yadongwen » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #49

Political. The US doesn't need test kits and masks, it needs approval for labs and cutting bureaucratic red tape.

Pretty sure in a couple of weeks US will need masks and other equipment. China very likely is the biggest producer of masks and as the number of new cases drops to near zero they have the extra capacity to donate to the rest of world.

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

#65

Post by Zhenya » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #24

DarthGhandi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Shouldn't there be hundreds of labs with these machines though? Yes. Roche just got FDA approval on a SARS-COV-2 test that will take four (4) hours that works with two of their (whatever you call the machine) models. Per Roche there are around 110 of those machines in the United States. Bloomberg had estimated throughput numbers and also indicated that Roche has tests that work with some of their other, slower equipm…

Why don't we just use a bunch of edisons.

/s

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

#66

Post by nostromo » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:11 AM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #53

sandov wrote: post #45

The guy is either a complete idiot [1] or pretends to be one. I wouldn't over-analyze his actions too much. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHGd6LqAVzw

Yes, he's a native Chinese speaker whose English is clumsy and ineloquent. Guess how native English speakers sound when they're trying to speak Chinese?

It wasn’t a language barrier issue though. And his English isn’t clumsy. It's that the actual content of what he said was ridiculous. It reminded me of the kind of BS Adam Neumann would say.

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

#67

Post by sandov » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #53

sandov wrote: post #45

The guy is either a complete idiot [1] or pretends to be one. I wouldn't over-analyze his actions too much. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHGd6LqAVzw

Yes, he's a native Chinese speaker whose English is clumsy and ineloquent. Guess how native English speakers sound when they're trying to speak Chinese?

No. He makes himself understood quite well. It's just that what he says is stupid.

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

#68

Post by o_p » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #8

Seems like a power move to me. Painting a picture for the world of struggling U.S. institutions needing a Chinese billionaire's help to weather a crisis. I'm not even sure it's incorrect.

Yeah China bad USA good. If anything China has done much more to contain the virus.

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

#69

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #24

DarthGhandi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Shouldn't there be hundreds of labs with these machines though? Yes. Roche just got FDA approval on a SARS-COV-2 test that will take four (4) hours that works with two of their (whatever you call the machine) models. Per Roche there are around 110 of those machines in the United States. Bloomberg had estimated throughput numbers and also indicated that Roche has tests that work with some of their other, slower equipm…

[deleted]

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

#70

Post by buonanotteciao » Sat, Mar 14, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

soneil wrote: post #46

brrrrr1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what help specifically were europeans sending to china, other than racist blunders and loads of ignorance of their problem?

China appear to be making special efforts to send whatever they can to Italy, in recognition of Italy going above and beyond in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan 'quake. For all that's going wrong lately, it's not a bad thing to see, I think.

That's just propaganda.

"China is not helping us, they are justing making propaganda for their people. All they did was sending 9 doctors and shipping masks that we had to PAY for. No gifts, no true donations."

https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/fhyayr/italian_h...