2020-04-27 at 9:08 AM UTC
Cathay Coof
African Astronaut
[the ariled affirmatory basinet]
When my morning newspapers first began mentioning the appearance of a mysterious new illness in China during mid-January, I paid little attention, absorbed as I was in the aftermath of our sudden assassination of Iran’s top military leader and the dangerous possibility of a yet another Middle Eastern war. But the reports persisted and grew, with deaths occurring and evidence growing that the viral disease could be transmitted between humans. China’s early conventional efforts seemed unsuccessful in halting the spread of the disease.
Then on Jan. 23rd and after only 17 deaths, the Chinese government took the astonishing step of locking down and quarantining the entire 11 million inhabitants of the city of Wuhan, a story that drew worldwide attention. They soon extended this policy to the 60 million Chinese of Hubei province, and not longer afterward shut down their entire national economy and confined 700 million Chinese to their homes, a public health measure probably a thousand times larger than anything previously undertaken in human history. So either the China’s leadership had suddenly gone insane, or they regarded this new virus as an absolutely deadly national threat, one that needed to be controlled at any possible cost.
Given these dramatic Chinese actions and the international headlines that they generated, the current accusations by Trump Administration officials that China had attempted to minimize or conceal the serious nature of the disease outbreak is so ludicrous as to defy rationality. In any event, the record shows that on December 31st, the Chinese had already alerted the World Health Organization to the strange new illness, and Chinese scientists published the entire genome of the virus on Jan. 12th, allowing diagnostic tests to be produced worldwide.
Unlike other nations, China had received no advance warning of the nature or existence of the deadly new disease, and therefore faced unique obstacles. But their government implemented public health control measures unprecedented in the history of the world and managed to almost completely eradicate the disease with merely the loss of a few thousand lives. Meanwhile, many other Western countries such as the US, Italy, Spain, France, and Britain dawdled for months and ignored the potential threat, and have now suffered well over 100,000 dead as a consequence, with the toll still rapidly mounting. For any of these nations or their media organs to criticize China for its ineffectiveness or slow response represents an absolute inversion of reality.
Some governments took full advantage of the early warning and scientific information provided by China. Although nearby East Asian nations such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore had been at greatest risk and were among the first infected, their competent and energetic responses allowed them to almost completely suppress any major outbreak, and they have suffered minimal fatalities. But America and several European countries avoiding adopting these same early measures such as widespread testing, quarantine, and contact-tracing, and have paid a terrible price for their insouciance.
A few weeks ago British Prime Minister Boris Johnson boldly declared that his own disease strategy for Britain was based upon rapidly achieving “herd immunity”—essentially encouraging the bulk of his citizens to become infected—then quickly backed away after his desperate advisors recognized that the result might entail a million or more British deaths.
By any reasonable measure, the response to this global health crisis by China and most East Asian countries has been absolutely exemplary, while that of many Western countries has been equally disastrous. Maintaining reasonable public health has been a basic function of governments since the days of the city-states of Sumeria, and the sheer and total incompetence of America and most of its European vassals has been breathtaking. If the Western media attempts to pretend otherwise, it will permanently forfeit whatever remaining international credibility it still possesses.
Asia - especially China's - response to the Wuhan flu has been far better then the West's. Particularly China - who have been upfront and open about the virus and how dangerous it is, and has tried repeatedly to warn us about how dangerous it is and not to underestimate it - all to no avail.
I seriously doubt the US would have been anywhere near as fast to respond. Instead we would have had information trickling out - mixed with deliberate lies - just like we seen with masks, and just like back in the 70s and 80s when AIDS was being discovered (it took decades).
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this
post didn't die in a fire!
2020-04-27 at 9:20 AM UTC
Cathay Coof
African Astronaut
[the ariled affirmatory basinet]
America (and some Europeans) are trying to invert reality, and blame someone else for their own chauvinism and incompetence.
2020-04-27 at 9:25 AM UTC
Cathay Coof
African Astronaut
[the ariled affirmatory basinet]
You don't travel much do you larry?
2020-04-27 at 4:54 PM UTC
i think if it started in the US the media are going to blow it out of proportion to drive their ratings up and mass hysteria and panic would ensue, with complete stock market collapse, and then an economic collapse followed by widespread rioting and looting.
thats the american way.
2020-04-27 at 4:57 PM UTC
we would all be dead. MUH AEROPLANES
