Post by Prometheus on Jan 6, 2021 11:59:27 GMT
China doubles down on COVID narrative as WHO investigation looms
David Stanway
Tue, January 5, 2021, 2:54 PM GMT+8SHANGHAI (Reuters) - As a team from the World Health Organization (WHO) prepares to visit China to investigate the origins of COVID-19, Beijing has stepped up efforts not only to prevent new outbreaks, but also shape the narrative about when and where the pandemic began.
China has dismissed criticism of its early handling of the coronavirus, first identified in the city of Wuhan at the end of 2019, and foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that the country would welcome the WHO team.
But amid simmering geopolitical tensions, experts said the investigators were unlikely to be allowed to scrutinise some of the more sensitive aspects of the outbreak, with Beijing desperate to avoid blame for a virus that has killed more than 1.8 million people worldwide.
"Even before this investigation, top officials from both sides have been very polarised in their opinions on the origins of the outbreak," said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. think tank.
"They will have to be politically savvy and draw conclusions that are acceptable to all the major parties," he added.
While other countries continue to struggle with infection surges, China has aggressively doused flare-ups. After a new cluster of cases last week, the city of Shenyang sealed off entire communities and required all non-essential workers to stay home.
On Saturday, senior diplomat Wang Yi praised the anti-pandemic efforts, saying China not only curbed domestic infections, but also "took the lead in building a global anti-epidemic defence" by providing aid to more than 150 countries.
But mindful of the criticism China has faced worldwide, Wang also became the highest-ranking official to question the consensus about COVID-19's origins, saying "more and more studies" show that it emerged in multiple regions.
China is also the only country to claim COVID-19 can be transmitted via cold chain imports, with the country blaming new outbreaks in Beijing and Dalian on contaminated shipments - even though the WHO has downplayed those risks.
TRANSPARENCY
China has been accused of a cover-up that delayed its initial response, allowing the virus to spread further.
The topic remains sensitive, with only a handful of studies into the origins of COVID-19 made available to the public.
But there have also been signs China is willing to share information that contradicts the official picture.
Last week, a study by China's Center for Disease Control showed that blood samples from 4.43% of Wuhan's population contained COVID-19 antibodies, indicating that the city's infection rates were far higher than originally acknowledged.
But scientists said China must also share any findings suggesting COVID-19 was circulating domestically long before it was officially identified in December 2019.
An Italian study showed that COVID-19 might have been in Europe several months before China's first official case. Chinese state media used the paper to support theories that COVID-19 originated overseas and entered China via contaminated frozen food or foreign athletes competing at the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019.
Raina MacIntyre, head of the Kirby Institute's Biosecurity Research Program in Australia, said the investigation needed to draw "a comprehensive global picture of the epidemiological clues", including any evidence COVID-19 was present outside of China before December 2019.
However, political issues mean they are unlikely to be given much leeway to investigate one hypothesis, that the outbreak was caused by a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said MacIntyre.
"I think it is unlikely all viruses in the lab at the time will be made available to the team," she said. "So I do not think we will ever know the truth."
Let me say this about that.
"China tried to hide it"
Were they "hiding it" or just trying to identify what was going on and get a handle on it?
Trump told us that HE downplayed the epidemic because he was trying to stem the tide of panic. Isn't that what Beijing was doing?
Of course it was. We were already hearing about a "deadly pneumonia" in Wuhan on the news back in November and early December before the Chinese government cracked down on the media... and social media. As soon as they cracked down is when people started worrying more, but China is not governed by communism as much as it is run by face, and an epidemic causes a loss of face for the government.
Trump told us that HE downplayed the epidemic because he was trying to stem the tide of panic. Isn't that what Beijing was doing?
Of course it was. We were already hearing about a "deadly pneumonia" in Wuhan on the news back in November and early December before the Chinese government cracked down on the media... and social media. As soon as they cracked down is when people started worrying more, but China is not governed by communism as much as it is run by face, and an epidemic causes a loss of face for the government.
We know now that the virus can spread even during the 2 week gestational period. That means that thousands of people traveled in and out of China long before the first "death by pneumonia" was even seen. How many more thousands traveled in and out of China before the pattern was spotted weeks later?
Yes, the media crackdown and still allowing people to travel for Spring Festival was a bad idea, but in the interest of avoiding a panic, it was allowed.
Yes, the media crackdown and still allowing people to travel for Spring Festival was a bad idea, but in the interest of avoiding a panic, it was allowed.
"Because China lied, people died"
Again, thousands of people had traveled into and out of China long before they even knew there was a problem.
But here's the thing: if I knew there was a "mysterious, deadly pneumonia" back in November of 2019, I'm guessing that our spy networks did too. I'm also guessing that their reports were passed on long before January 6th, which is the first documented time (that we know about) that Trump was informed. That's TWO MONTHS of travel time, and it was another 4 weeks before Trump banned travel from China.
Of course, by that time, the disease had reared its ugly head in about a dozen other countries that we never banned travel from. Chinese cities were already on lockdown and Italians and Spaniards were dropping like flies, but we let thousands of flights land in US airports from Italy and Spain... and all of the other infected nations.
Of course, by that time, the disease had reared its ugly head in about a dozen other countries that we never banned travel from. Chinese cities were already on lockdown and Italians and Spaniards were dropping like flies, but we let thousands of flights land in US airports from Italy and Spain... and all of the other infected nations.
China has lied about the number of infected and dead."
Maybe, at the beginning, but probably not now. Probably not since last February or March. And certainly not to the extent that many racists would state. Lying serves no purpose. Beijing knows that everyone thinks they are liars, so lying would only bolster that viewpoint. Telling the truth won't mitigate racism completely, but it helps.
In the end, if China had as many infections and deaths (based on population) as the US, there would be 91,000,000 sick people here with over 1.5 million dead. Say what you want about Chinese control of the media, but if that many people had died, we residents would know about it. There are too many people in the health care industry here to keep them all quiet and Chinese people gossip like 13-year-old middle schools girls.
In the end, if China had as many infections and deaths (based on population) as the US, there would be 91,000,000 sick people here with over 1.5 million dead. Say what you want about Chinese control of the media, but if that many people had died, we residents would know about it. There are too many people in the health care industry here to keep them all quiet and Chinese people gossip like 13-year-old middle schools girls.
"It's biological warfare!"
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard over the past year. People justify it by pointing out the human rights violations China commits against its own people in "re-education camps" etc. THAT is exactly where the conspiracy theory founders. If China wanted to test a biological agent, they never would have let it into the wild in their own cities. They would have tested it in the camps then sent "sacrificial lambs" OUT of the country. They wouldn't purposely endanger their own economy.
"It leaked from the virology lab!"
Possible but highly improbable. For a contagion to leak out of any containment area would require a system so faulty that breaking containment would take such a comedy of errors that it boggles the mind. Still... it could happen. I just don't think it did as many, many respected scientists have independently determined that the virus shows no signs of being anything other than a naturally occurring virus.
All the other "arguments" are just racist claptrap.
In the end, it really doesn't matter where the virus originated except in order to study transmission. What matters is how each country dealt with (and continues to deal with) the threat.
Sadly, for most of the west, dealing with it meant repeating China's errors and/or simply (arrogantly) ignoring its lethality.
And let's face facts: if the virus had originated in a friendly, country populated by mostly white people, no one would give a fuck about playing the Blame Game. Everyone would simply have come together, stood 6 feet apart, and sung "Kumbaya" together through their masks.
![[giveup]](http://storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/FSYefibmKqtatIXMgHZg.gif)
![[cheers]](http://storage.proboards.com/7182076/images/engyBVslEdpmpmdnBwZQ.gif)
