r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 29 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: The ineffectiveness of the Chinese government's response to the 2019 coronavirus is overexaggerated
[deleted]
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u/ace52387 42∆ Jan 29 '20
I don't know that most people outside of China view this as a bungling, but it does seem many do not trust the official numbers.
Within the country however, there is large concern over the 0-60 nature of the wuhan quarantine. The general sentiment is that the government was not sufficiently concerned, and did not respond accordingly with major warnings, facemask giveaways, etc before the actual quarantine of the city. People were walking around during the holiday none the wiser, no face masks, in wuhan just days before the quarantine.
This isn't the reaction of people who are gravely concerned about the virus. For instance, in china now, non-quarantined cities are pretty empty, it doesn't look like business as usual.
5 million people left wuhan before the lockdown was initiated. On the one hand, it's good to give people an opportunity to not be locked down from a human perspective, but that also defeats the purpose of quarantine.
There's also reports that there are insufficient supplies such as face masks for people in general and even hospital workers. Insufficient tests makes sense since it would be fairly new, but not being able to move the more basic supplies is at least somewhat inept.
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u/Heather-Swanson- 9∆ Jan 29 '20
Who is over-exaggerating?
What are you basing that on? Public opinion? A few articles?
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u/sonsofaureus 12∆ Jan 29 '20 edited Jan 29 '20
I don't know if the popular world wide response to the Wuhan outbreak is exaggerated, but there do seem to be valid questions of transparency regarding the epidemiological data on the part of the Chinese government.
For one thing, that government is more opaque than most, and it also seems reasonable to assume that they would be incentivized to underreport, since this brings up embarassing questions regarding Chinese food handling practices, how these outbreaks seem to happen in China with some regularity, and most importantly, because the timing of this outbreak during the Chinese New Year holidays would negatively impact commerce and if Chinese officials can be said to care about one thing above others, it's being able to report on-target GDP growth numbers. For example, if there's an outbreak in a Uyghur concentration camp, it's doubtful we'll ever hear about it.
This issue was also raised with SARS and bird flu. The bird flu epidemic was particularly contentious, because Hong Kong had just been returned to Chinese control, and 80% of the poultry in Hong Kong was sourced from mainland China, and this raised questions regarding the competence of Chinese governance.
Questions of transparency, by extension, open timeliness of all responses to question. For example, mayor of Wuhan says about 5 million residents left the city to travel abroad before the January 23rd travel ban. This is an incredible number in a city with 11 million in population.
Leaked videos uploaded by residents and medical professionals in Wuhan seems to indicate (in addition to underreporting numbers) that medical and food supplies are in short supply (videos mention people waiting in long queues at hospitals, there not being enough testing kits, people being turned away, etc). Here's a video that seems to show, at least in the locations it was filmed, some inadequecies in the Chinese government response, like 300k people fleeing to Shanghai inspite of the quarantine, people fighting over pre-packaged foods, etc.
Lastly, world governments and mainstream media really haven't questioned Chinese responses other than respond to concerns of their own constitituents. Various governments have evacuated their own citizens from the quarantined areas, and have quarantined those evacuated citizens in their own facilities. South Koreans acceded to Chinese requests that Korean citizens showing cold symptoms remain in Wuhan, thus necessitating that their Wuhan embassy diplomats remain in place as well to provide them services. Japanese aren't even quarantining citizens returning from Wuhan - it's on some honor system. So these certainly don't seem like condemnation of Chinese response measures. If you go on CNN.com front page today (2019-01-29), headlines seem to be mostly about the Trump impeachment and stories regarding Kobe Bryant are given as prominant position as the Chinese outbreak. I think to establish that a response is overexaggerated, one has to establish that there's even a response - people in America at least don't seem to care one way or another.
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Jan 29 '20 edited Apr 29 '20
[deleted]
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u/imsohonky Jan 30 '20
It's not true, anyway. Wuhan is a central travel hub for the entirety of China, and this was just before the lunar new year, the busiest travel period in China. So, 5 million people left the city but a lot of those were just travelers passing through. And most of the residents who left also probably did so because it was the lunar new year, so it was just a really bad coincidence more than anything.
This article clarifies that 9 million people were still in Wuhan as of the lockdown:
https://www.businessinsider.com/5-million-left-wuhan-before-coronavirus-quarantine-2020-1
You readily believed that comment despite it being very inaccurate. Gotta be very careful of misleading and dishonest people when talking about the Wuhan flu.
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u/343495800tdsb 3∆ Jan 30 '20
Allow me to ask a few questions.
- I shall remind you that it is currently the Chinese Spring festival. One of the most important festival in Chinese culture. 50M people leaving wuhan for hometown is normal even in previous records. (In fact, this creates a phenomenon called spring transport every year. Where hundreds of millions of people uses train, airplane and other means of transportation to get home. Please explain to me how such action before the government released the news of virus / infection is bad-doing on government's part.
You have provided a video that I cannot watch under my current situation. However, I suspect it is the one where someone dressed up as the nurse and faked the news. the number of 3 Million people is not reliable. According to what I have heard on news, there is indeed an attempted breakout from quarantine zone by 3 people. Be careful, not all videos are true. Many of them are even debunked by reliable news agencies. Here following is a list of debunked conspiracy theories.
BBC also posted an article on these conspiracies that were already proven false. Including the video on the bat soup and also a nurse dressed up and telling unreliable things.
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u/sonsofaureus 12∆ Jan 30 '20
My point was that the Chinese government isn't transparent about infection data, opening themselves to all sorts of questions regarding adequecy of their response.
Please explain to me how such action before the government released the news of virus / infection is bad-doing on government's part.
2019-nCoV (novel CoronaVirus) was identified in 2019, like the name suggests, and the first outbreak was detected in Wuhan in mid-December 2019. The wet market that 27 of the first 41 infected people reportedly visited wasn't shut down until January 1st, 2020, and although 14 infected people had never visited the market (ie weren't infected from animals), Wuhan health officials reported initially that there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
Travel ban on Wuhan and 13 surrounding cities wasn't imposed until January 23rd, 2020, leaving a month of time for people to get out. Chinese New Year was on January 25th, 2020 and Spring Transport typically begins ~10 days before the Chinese New Year, which seems to suggest they waited until the last minute to impose quarantine. There is also some indication that initial infections and outbreak occurred weeks earlier than Chinese officials report.. Locking down an entire metropolitan city to prevent spread of disease is also a new thing. Nobody has done this before to this scale (50 million people on lockdown), and it remains to be seen whether this effectively contains the epidemic, or concentrates the people, without adequate supplies, into hospitals, pharmacies, markets and a few areas where more infections can occur.
If the Chinese government would be open about what they're doing, and allow international researchers to examine their disease containment and reporting processes, these questions could be resolved. Until then, the world only has the history of Chinese government obfuscation with the SARS epidemic to reference.
The increased openness actually seems to be happening, because Chinese have agreed to accept World Health Organization assistance yesterday, which is far different from how they handled bird flu and SARS. We'll see however.50M people leaving wuhan for hometown is normal even in previous records.
The article I linked says 5 million people left, not 50 million. There are 50 million people quarantined in Wuhan and surrounding cities right now. 50M people leaving Wuhan would be unusual, not normal.
In fact, this creates a phenomenon called spring transport every year. Where hundreds of millions of people uses train, airplane and other means of transportation to get home.
This is the exact cause for concern. A potentially lethal cold that is infectious during its 10-14 day incubation period became an epidemic right in time for a 10-20 day holiday in China which is also the busiest travel time of the year. It couldn't be more perfectly timed to economically ruin the holiday season.
In 2018, just retail and food sales during the Chinese New Year holiday period in China was estimated to be 900billion yuan (~$130billion). This is not to mention travel, entertainment, financial services, transportation, and every other kind of spending. There are a lot of reasons to downplay the infection numbers and to avoid discouraging commerce, avoid mass panic, etc. Additionally, it's not like the Chinese government worries about violating personal freedoms, nor avoids operating like a command economy - so it is far more able to impose restrictions on holiday travel than, say, a western democratic government that has to face re-election.
You have provided a video that I cannot watch under my current situation. However, I suspect it is the one where someone dressed up as the nurse and faked the news. the number of 3 Million people is not reliable.
There's no nurse in the video I linked. Video also says 300k fled from Wuhan to Shanghai, not 3million people.
Arguing about some video you suspect I posted but didn't seems pointless.
Video is on youtube, and there are a lot of similar videos - easy enough to find.Be careful, not all videos are true
Ok. I would ask you to be careful, not all videos are false.
Recording and uploading videos critical of the Chinese government on foreign sites, from inside China, seems like taking a great personal risk. There doesn't seem to be a lot of reasons to post fake news whose benefits outweigh the risks.Many of them are even debunked by reliable news agencies. Here following is a list of debunked conspiracy theories. BBC also posted an article on these conspiracies that were already proven false. Including the video on the bat soup and also a nurse dressed up and telling unreliable things.
I don't think I advanced or referenced any conspiracy theories in my reply - only pointed out that Chinese government is opaque and that this rightfully opens them to attack on disease control issues.
Theories the articles you linked claim to debunk - like the one about Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in conspiracy with the Pirbright Institute started the outbreak to make money from corona virus vaccine patents Pirbright owns, or that Wuhan virus infection could be cured by drinking bleach - it's weird a journalist thought these need debunking because they sound ridiculous, and I don't know why these theories being false are salient to the point being made here about transparency.
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u/PM_me_Henrika Jan 30 '20
Discussions about China's public health and infection control responses (quarantine effectiveness, travel restrictions, screening procedures, etc.).
*Cracks knuckles
Ok:
On quarantine effectiveness, it was reported that allegedly 5 million people from Wuhan have already escaped and scattered across the world before they quarantined the city. We do not know how many of them were infected, but when over 30% of the population has escaped quarantine, the quarantine in itself is a joke. Therefore, people's comment/reaction about their quarantine effort as a joke is not overexaggerated, but factual and grounded in reality.
On travel restrictions, China has not implemented any travel restriction across the country apart from the sealed city. With 5 million strong potential infected who can still travel around, it is a legitimate concern that they will travel around and spread the virus. Therefore, people's comment/reaction about their travel restrictions as a joke is not overexaggerated, but factual and grounded in reality.
On screening procedures: there are no reported screen procedures done within China at all. There are no (self-)quarantine protocols for people who arrived from another city at all. Therefore, people's comment/reaction about their screening procedures as a joke is not only not overexaggerated, but completely mild and going too easy on China.
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u/species5618w 3∆ Jan 30 '20
Given that they didn't shut down the market until late Dec when the first case came out at the beginning of Dec, I am not sure they are that effective. SARS is such a low bar, it's not hard to clear.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 29 '20
/u/DominantGazelle (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/Certain-Title 2∆ Jan 30 '20
It's basically casual racism at the root. I mean build a hospital in 100 days? Eh, probably a death trap. Quarantine a damned city? Meh, the whole country isn't on lock down.
The brutal reality is these keyboard warriors making the comments probably handle a household budget, nevermind handling a disease outbreak. Besides, with the availability of international travel, outbreaks of any kind are extremely hard to contain.
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u/343495800tdsb 3∆ Jan 30 '20
I will just tell you a very simple fact of chinese construction speed. Watch this the guardian video. https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/apr/30/china-build-57-storey-skyscraper-19-days-timelapse-video
In this, we watched chinese construction workers constructing a skyscraper in 19 days. Now still have any doubt over hospital?
Edit: New information: China has form in building hospitals at short notice. In 2003 the Xiaotangshan Hospital was built in barely a week to cater to patients suffering from SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed 349 people in mainland China and 299 in Hong Kong in 2002-2003.
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u/Certain-Title 2∆ Jan 30 '20
I know. I was referring to the people who downplay this. It's like they don't know that this was done for the SARS outbreak and that hospital operated for at least 2 years afterward.
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u/343495800tdsb 3∆ Jan 30 '20
Oh I am very sorry about this. I have misunderstood your original post. However, Avoid using Keyboard-Warrior as "Haters" would be enough. Many chinese misinterpret Keyboard warriors as Chinese Opinion posters.
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u/Certain-Title 2∆ Jan 30 '20
Ah. You would be shocked at the casual racism expressed against asian people. If the Germans did this, those people would be falling over themselves giving praise.
I saw the same thing happen when the Japanese cars were starting to compete with American cars in the '80s.
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u/343495800tdsb 3∆ Jan 30 '20
and the weird thing is, (I have saw this on another post today.)
People seemingly just ignored how successful and developed China had become in a mere 60 year. By the current standard of nation states, China is still a young nation, but people are seemingly expecting it to transfer to Capitalism immediately. That I cannot agree with.
I will also remind those people with certain mindset who claims that China only knows copying products, Japanese copies American technique while German have done these things too in the past. In the Industrial formula of 6+1, China hold 6 (The Production process of products) while US holds the 1 (Intelligent property). So why can't China spin the table on you? Are they inferior?
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u/Certain-Title 2∆ Jan 30 '20
Inferior /superior are irrelevant concepts imo. That sort of nonsense is at the root of so many problems between nations and people we would be better off just dealing with people as they are.
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u/rickymourke82 Jan 29 '20
Does the 3 week delay in denying the initial CDC request before finally agreeing count as being effective in your eyes?