To be so angry at the Chinese government

[HildegardeCrowe]

Because they didn’t shut the wet markets down permanently after SARS so another pandemic was inevitable. The rest of the world is now putting pressure on China to end it’s wildlife trade but this won’t be easy. Most of the world is in lockdown because of this trade and it’s so depressing to think history will repeat itself if China doesn’t get its act together.

The more I learn about how the Chinese abuse wild animals the angrier I get - the latest thing I read about is how they make the lives of bears a misery by extracting their bile.

Surely this is a PR disaster for China?

Geepipe That’s so true. Ebola is a similar problem (not whataboutery I promise! ) because of humans encroaching on animals/bats territories and farming practices pushing animals into unfamiliar areas, and of course coronaviruses are going to spread whenever humans are in contact with bats or with animals that have come into contact with bats. This is a problem that scientists and conservationists are going to have to solve - eradicating bats can’t be the solution as bats contribute so much to the ecosystem. Stopping wet markets which mix live and dead animals is a start, as is cracking down on illegal trade, but when the “enemy” is on wings it’s going to be a tough battle.

Hopefully enough international pressure on the Chinese government will mean these things can happen, which means we have to rely on our own governments to put international health and safety before profits.

As it appears CV-19 came from the food trade in Bats and China has a record of trading and eating things few other people ever would, then of course they need to held accountable
Indeed i don't see any reason why they shouldn't be made to pay reparations, the young of the world will be paying for this tragedy for decades to come....and thats before we get to the huge loss of life.

Sorry geepipe I meant so true about the human intervention/species jump part. Apparently I lack clarity so thought I should clarify.

It will be “interesting” to see if they find patient zero and work out the origins as there are a (hopefully small) number of possibilities. I’m not going to hold my breath though, as I think it took 4 years for find the patient zero for hiv/aids outbreak in the USA.

Shanghai that’s it! Countdown with Bob something? Comfort tv

Not countdown! Blockbusters!

Haha i got you utterly and i agree although im ignorant on ebola i dont know much about it at all but it doesnt suprise me. There will be some illnesses out there that are comparible with coronavirus and all governments really need to look into the ecological aspect for sure. But im not holding my breath with China ever changing their stance. It was in the news yesterday or the day before that the Chinese government have said now dogs are pets again not food but how will they enforce that. I dont see them employing health inspectors and walking around all known markets in the country which is what they need to.

Also to clarify as its important on this thread when i say China I mean the chinese government not the people.

we have people fighting not to mention where and how it originated and what the place of origin can do to stop this happening again.

For me, no, it’s a matter of extremes. The op was phrased in such a way as to sound too angry and unreasonably aggressive. Many posters followed that line. Your phrasing is much more low-key and could even encompass some sort of help or support for this outcome. When we get to the level that jasjas, normally more moderate, just did, demanding reparations in the name of the young - as if the young whomever they might be don’t have enough to occupy themselves getting reparations back from our own government - then no, I will question that. Perhaps I take the internet too seriously, or am just in a better mood today but it would be nice if whipping up anger and pointing fingers everywhere but at our own problems could cool a bit.

geepipie
Regardless of differing views on here, am sure we would all agree that if the Chinese wanted to inspect all markets in the country it is something the govt is capable of achieving.
Some action has already been taken in terms of prohibiting markets which sell wild animals for consumption. Let’s hope these regulations are being strictly applied.

Hmm, would the UK government silence doctors?
Well they are, about PPE.

Perhaps the descendants of Eyam, what’s left, should demand reparations for that problem. Yes that’s historical, so are SARS MERs and the initial species jump of this virus. Feeding habits are very cultural incidentally. The French eat frogs legs and snails, and many cultures would find eating pigs pretty disgusting.

They don’t know if it came from food trade in bats. The latest study says it is still to be determined:
“Neither the bat betacoronaviruses nor the pangolin betacoronaviruses sampled thus far have polybasic cleavage sites. Although no animal coronavirus has been identified that is sufficiently similar to have served as the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV-2, the diversity of coronaviruses in bats and other species is massively undersampled. Mutations, insertions and deletions can occur near the S1–S2 junction of coronaviruses22, which shows that the polybasic cleavage site can arise by a natural evolutionary process. For a precursor virus to acquire both the polybasic cleavage site and mutations in the spike protein suitable for binding to human ACE2, an animal host would probably have to have a high population density (to allow natural selection to proceed efficiently) and an ACE2-encoding gene that is similar to the human ortholog.”

“Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”
www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

China is waging a war on America, it hates America. I know enough to write the above.

For what is worth, the Chinese, and us, were lucky that SARS wasn't as bad as COVID. They (government) were much worse then in terms of secrecy.
We were very unlucky in that this virus is transmissible before symptoms. That's the key feature that has fucked up all attempts at getting rid of it.

We were lucky that MERS isn't like COVID or SARS. It's still deadly and still around.

It took some time to pinpoint the origin of swine flu.

But, the Chinese didn't know what they had in their hands at the time, or knew a lot less than we did a month ago. Europe and the US knew more about it when it hit us and many governments chose to do very little.

What I don't like about the OP and such claims is that it wants to absolve our governments of their own responsibilities over the response to this.
Nobody is innocent.

Geepipe Phew The Chinese government has been making the right kind of noises about animal welfare and health and safety standards at markets, so we can hope that will be followed with action. Like you say though, incredibly hard to enforce with such a huge population and area.

Let’s hope the CCP have some good ideas (that manage not to infringe on anyone’s human rights).

Feeding habits are very cultural incidentally. The French eat frogs legs and snails, and many cultures would find eating pigs pretty disgusting

Most Chinese people do not eat wild animals. Most don’t even eat dogs. It is a minority. In huge urban cities like Wuhan, it is a wealthy minority.

These ‘cultural’ practices could end very quickly because it’s not all that common. Most Chinese consume pork and chicken, just like everyone else.

Yes Shanghai Diva,
The Chinese Gov should inspect all markets repeatedly for meeting hygiene standards and not trading in wildlife (which is banned).

What I don't like about the OP and such claims is that it wants to absolve our governments of their own responsibilities over the response to this

I read the OP and didn’t see any such comparison. What gives you this idea? I don’t think they even mentioned the UK at all!

Good post Lweji

When we get to the level that jasjas, normally more moderate, just did, demanding reparations in the name of the young

I stand by that, when the UK screwed up over CJD and F&M its farming industry was punished with food embargoes, costing the UK billions in lost exports.

As i said, any country that allows a new virus to wreak havoc on the world, cannot go unpunished, we cannot simply just go back tohow things were.

But of course, this is based on what we know now, if it turns out to be an act of nature which no could have prevented then China isn't to blame.

What I don't like about the OP and such claims is that it wants to absolve our governments of their own responsibilities over the response to this

This is how I feel. Especially the lack of testing here in February and early March, they seemed unable to accept that COVID-19 was no longer an infection imported from overseas, but that there was already community transmission.

At the stage when my DD2 and I went down with what was clearly COVID-19, we weren't either tested or told to self-isolate. We were careful, as we would have been with any infection, but no one was taking the threat seriously at that stage.

Now, only 5 weeks later, 10,000 people are dead. Yes, the Chinese government didn't warn the rest of the world soon enough, but we knew about it from late January. But they didn't take the threat seriously, and those who were concerned were accused of 'scaremongering'.

Germany by contrast tested extensively and I don't think it's just luck that they've had far fewer deaths.

Blaming China doesn't help, regardless of whether they hid the truth for too long. There was still time to act.

Oliver’s MUmmy
“Does anyone believe the WHO.

According to them the virus hadn’t left China on 23rd January.”

Sorry but that is false. They reported on 14 Jan the first case is Thailand, on 16 Jan the first case in Japan, on 21 Jan the first case in N Korea. Etc
www.who.int/csr/don/archive/year/2020/en/

Thanks plan for the nature.com article - interesting read and nice to have a handy link to disprove the “man made bio weapon” crowd

I think the more that's coming out, the more angry the world grows at the Chinese government. Not just about wet markets - more they downplayed the infection and mortality rates by up to 40 times. Do you believe they only had 3,000 odd deaths, when there are accounts of them burning 1,000 plus bodies a day in Wuhan alone? There are noises coming out of Downing Street about a reckoning to come. I should hope so.

@SnoozyLou

I agree about the Chinese government, but that wasn't exactly surprising, as the Chinese government has never exactly been known for its transparency about anything, has it? But other governments are not blameless, they could have acted sooner to protect people in their countries.

I think, though, that for the moment the priority is limiting deaths from this virus, which is already creating havoc. There will be time for recriminations afterwards.

'Some action has already been taken in terms of prohibiting markets which sell wild animals for consumption. Let’s hope these regulations are being strictly applied.'

That's reassuring to hear Shanghai but do you feel there's a sense of a cultural change too? So rather than prohibiting these markets that will probably push them underground and with even less attention to food hygiene, do you hear any of the people perhaps realising they shouldn't be eating pangolins and bats and understanding where the virus started?