China have contained virus within 7 weeks

[alloutoffucks]

And they had far more cases than us. Why are we being told that it is too hard to contain the virus when we have far less cases as a starting point?

China's numbers are probably going down because people aren't getting tested. They're sick, they know what it is, they stay home. Same will happen here. If you don't test it, you don't find it.

The official policy is only to test people in hospital. That is policy, and keeps the numbers artificially low.

@hiddenmnetter
I didn’t say the Chinese came up with humane methods of self isolation, in fact the reverse is true. We were told by the compound mgt that if in quarantine our basic needs would be met, that’s it- not a great scenario.
Coming out of lockdown has already started in some provinces, so we will see if China avoids a second spike.
Not sure what you mean by huge human cost. If the govt has done nothing the human cost in terms of deaths would have been greater.

@andadietcoke
Numbers are going down because there has been no contact. Friends of mine have been home for 45 days with only trips to the supermarket.
Tracing contacts has also been effective.
If you have any symptoms, you must go to the hospital to be treated. We have been advised that strict penalties are in place if you do not seek treatment.

Was referring to the OP @ShanghaiDiva. I didn't read your posts as supporting what the Chinese government was doing.

The official policy is only to test people in hospital. That is policy, and keeps the numbers artificially low.

The motivation for the policy is not to keep the numbers artificially low. The consequence of the policy is to keep the numbers artificially low.

www.arte.tv/en/videos/095527-000-A/coronavirus-the-beijing-quarantine-diaries/

If the Chinese had taken appropriate action in the first place we wouldn’t have a pandemic. Instead, information that could have saved many lives was suppressed & the doctors reporting their findings were visited by the police & made to sign gagging orders. This virus could have been contained close to the source if the Chinese hadn’t been covering up the evidence.

China can put up hospitals in a couple weeks - here it takes months / years. We are too slow, too reactive rather than proactive. The gov want 60% of the population to catch this bug for herd immunity, but there's no way to pick and choose who catches it. So no lockdown for us. No containment.

Bollox
China have not contained coronavirus, they have allowed it to spread throughout the entire world! The ENTIRE world, hiw on earth is that containing it! Ffs.

Buy yourself a new dictionary love.

Mistakes were made: from not learning the lessons from SARS to the initial cover up

I loathe the current Chinese government and Xi Jinping and co. have a lot to answer for. The wild animal markets should have been shuttered in 2004 when consumption of civet cat caused SARS. There have been a few localized disease transmission since then and the government has done fuck all to combat this; in fact declining consumption likely has more to do with generational shifts than anything done by the government.

Fuck them. They had the temerity to cry racism when countries started to block air transport but then the government feels they can do it to other countries now without remark.

I hope Chinese people are taking note and place blame where it deservedly lies. I also hope that the rest of the world holds China accountable for causing this worldwide pandemic and mass death.

They should be ashamed. I love China and lived there many, many years but the wildlife markets have been a known issue and was flat out ignored despite previous trouble

@hiddenmnetter
Apologies, thought you were referring to me!

@Lordamighty
Yes, I think that is one thing we can all agree on!

Interestingly most of the pandemics in history have (apparently) originated in China. There is even evidence the black death started there (according to Wikipedia which I appreciate is not a high quality source) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

They need to stop eating wild animals.

They need to stop eating wild animals.

You do know a lot of them can't just pop to Tesco.

Bush meat (wild animals) is common in Africa and ebola came from the fruit bat.

Restrictions regarding consumption and trade in wild animals were introduced a couple of weeks ago. Too little too late, sadly,

@MaomiMink you’d have thought people would learn bats aren’t good to eat in that case. Apparently not

But it is easy for us who have never known true deprivation (and using a food bank isn't real deprivation) to judge others.

What the hell are they supposed to do when they're poor and there is nothing else to eat but what's there in the wild.

You do know a lot of them can't just pop to Tesco.

Bush meat (wild animals) is common in Africa and ebola came from the fruit bat.

I thought they all lived in compounds.

Yes, not ideal. But it's like a war. We all have to make sacrifices. I think the situation is revealing a serious lack of resilience and a great deal of entitlement

I agree.

On another thread, many posters were piling in to argue against the merits of Sir Patrick's and Chris Witty's advice to delay the timescales for stepping up the social isolation strategy because people don't have the staying power and will get bored and fed up of having to limit the lifestyle and freedoms they have become so entitled to.

We're talking about 2 of the most eminent and reverred medical scientists in U.K. and globally, but of course the MN posse are clearly the subject matter experts in armchair epidemiology.

You do know a lot of them can't just pop to Tesco

Ffs these aren’t animals that were hunted down for food. Don’t defend this practice, the government knew how dangerous it could be and looked the other way. So many Chinese activists have been trying to get these shut down fwiw.

(And grocery stores exist over most of China, pls update yourself)

In cities, we live on compounds for the most part, but not in rural areas. There are wet markets everywhere.
Wild animals ime are considered a delicacy and are very expensive, not really eaten by those on low incomes. We have had turtle and shark fin soup at weddings and have seen dog on the menu in south China, but have not really seen wild animals on the menu or in wet markets.

Yes, we do have supermarkets!
In rural areas there are mainly wet markets for meat and veg, in addition to supermarkets

Wild animals ime are considered a delicacy and are very expensive, not really eaten by those on low incomes

This is definitely the case in big cities like SH and BJ; but poor provinces like Guizhou and Yunnan definitely eat wild meat found in wet markets too.

Have never seen in any wild meat in wet markets, but I live in Jiangsu.