What are your thoughts on China ?

[Wetfloortiles]

Very interested in this.

I don't believe their numbers for a start, and I do feel they should take responsibility for this global pandemic.

[Cornettoninja]

Trump had stolen a berlin order for the US

I think this fucker and his government should be charged with war crimes. Remember him trying to secure the rights for any vaccines produced by a company for America only.

Fuck him.

[YippeeKayakOtherBuckets]

Although why we all believed it is on us really 🤷‍♀️

[feelingverylazytoday]

Of course the Chinese government need to be held accountable. The pandemic originated there. They were supposed to take action after the SARS outbreak, and yet here we are, with virtually every country in the entire affected.
Trump is a useless buffoon and a nasty individual but so far he hasn't unleashed any pandemics on the world, so not really relevant.

I still can't believe I've been called racist
Oh I can. This is mumsnet after all. Only white British people (especially men) are ever in the wrong.

[BovaryX]

This might be of interest as to the credibility or otherwise of the statistics:

^Chinese authorities have changed the way they count coronavirus cases no less than eight times since the outbreak began, and only this week started counting asymptomatic cases in its official statistics. When the daily counts started in January, the China’s National Health Commission’s definition of a coronavirus case was much more restrictive than it is now. Patients only qualified as suspected cases if they displayed all four of a list of specific symptoms - including pneumonia indicated by a chest radiograph – and had also either travelled or had indirect contact with a Wuhan market within the previous fortnight.
Inevitably, tens of thousands of milder cases of coronavirus slipped through unrecorded. Even now that the definition has been tightened, senior politicians and US intelligence have expressed concerns that the statistics released by China may be fiction.Certainly the statistics look out of kilter. China was affected weeks before any other nation, but has only reported around 82,500 cases so far.
By comparison, the US which had its first coronavirus case in mid-January, has reported more than 245,000 – more than three times China’s figure, according to data collated by Johns Hopkins University in America. The UK, whose population is less than five per cent of China’s – and which has lagged far behind on testing - has already reported 34,173 cases. This is 41 per cent of China’s total^

[BovaryX]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/03/boss-supported-china-now-giving-nation-much-credit-coronavirus/

[Cornettoninja]

The utter bullshit about only the elderly and ill dying is the most disgusting lie in all this

China’s stats never said that, this line was pushed by our own governments and media to keep the economies moving.

The mortality rates by age group haven’t changed much if at all since the figures were published from China’s data. Problem is 0.04% of 6 billion of people is still 250,0000 if you looked at one low risk age group globally.

[SabineSchmetterling]

The wet markets are obviously a problem and they need to be dealt with.

The scale of the epidemic now was not an inevitable result of the initial outbreak though. The response of European and other western nations allowed this to spiral into a pandemic.

I don’t think China’s figures are accurate but I’d be surprised if they are are wildly more inaccurate than our own. Although, I think at least a proportion of their discrepancies are a result of deliberate obfuscation whereas ours seem to be inaccurate due to low testing and chaos within the system.

I am not a cheerleader for the Chinese government. I think they are repressive, and the wider world has turned a blind eye for too long to their actions in Hong Kong, their threats against Taiwan, human rights abuses etc. The Chinese government being awful doesn’t make what’s happening here their fault though. The world has spent decades playing along with the idea that Taiwan is a Chinese province. We don’t let them compete in the Olympics under their own flag or under the name Taiwan, the world continues to allow them to be excluded form the UN and WHO and the U.K. has abandoned its commitment to protect the one country two systems arrangements for Hong Kong. There is plenty to criticise China for, we don’t need to blame them for things that are not their responsibility. It is not good for democracy to let our leaders push responsibility for their actions onto China.

[BovaryX]

if the World Health Organisation’s verdict is to be believed, China’s behaviour in the coronavirus crisis has been exemplary.Officials who returned from a “joint mission” to the country in February described how China had “rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history”.WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claimed that China’s lockdown strategy had “bought time for the world”.However, concerns are now growing that far from buying time, China has put the world on the back foot by publishing data about the spread of the disease that is at best inconsistent and at worst heavily massaged.It has also been accused of silencing whistle-blowers, and overlooking early evidence of the infectiousness of the disease.

[Lifeisabeach09]

I don't believe their numbers either.
However, this pandemic could have originated anywhere. Smallpox, BSE/CJD, MERs as examples. I do feel it was only a matter of time before humans were hit with another worldwide 'plague.'
I do appreciate that China came down hard to limit the spread internally. Yes, they could have notified WHO earlier and done more externally, perhaps.
But I blame the UK govt for its initial response, lack of testing, not closing borders/airspace, and not doing more when this came to the world's attention back in January.

[BovaryX]

surprised if they are are wildly more inaccurate than our own

You would be surprised if a totalitarian state which was the ground zero for the emergence of a global pandemic and which is accused of silencing medical whistleblowers had less accurate statistics than the liberal democracies of the West?? Credible. Not.

[SabineSchmetterling]

Bovary Did you read my next sentence?

[kevintheorangecarrot]

Wankers.

[MarshaBradyo]

Yes they should make the big changes to markets to ensure there’s not a third time.

[BovaryX]

Yep. Did you read this?
When the daily counts started in January, the China’s National Health Commission’s definition of a coronavirus case was much more restrictive than it is now. Patients only qualified as suspected cases if they displayed all four of a list of specific symptoms - including pneumonia indicated by a chest radiograph – and had also either travelled or had indirect contact with a Wuhan market within the previous fortnight. Inevitably, tens of thousands of milder cases of coronavirus slipped through unrecorded. Even now that the definition has been tightened, senior politicians and US intelligence have expressed concerns that the statistics released by China may be fiction.Certainly the statistics look out of kilter

[TheLadyAnneNeville]

I’ve signed petitions for years relating to the live animal markets. Sickening. But then the Chinese Government has an appalling history with the way they treat their humans so, all that petitioning always fell on deaf ears. And here we are. Whoever thought it a good idea to have open air markets with live animals all squashed into cages, waiting to be skinned and boiled alive? You reap what you sow.

[ILLBESUZIE]

Yes they should take responsibility and it's not racist to say this, it's responsible.

[SabineSchmetterling]

Yep and when I had clear Coronavirus symptoms over 3 weeks ago and my partner did a week before that we could not be tested. Why not? Because we had not been to China or Northern Italy in the preceding two weeks. Despite the fact that we live in London, where community transmission had already been confirmed and both had contact with people that had been in Northern Italy. It’s the same principle as China not testing people who hadn’t had direct contact with the wet market.

Our numbers still only really reflect people being hospitalised and quite small numbers of NHS staff because we haven’t been able to ramp up testing enough to test everyone with symptoms.

[TheLadyAnneNeville]

The utter bullshit about only the elderly and ill dying is the most disgusting lie in all this

We’ve done this... until this weekend. Now, the Govt. health warnings include EVERYONE.

[EthelMayFergus]

You reap what you sow. That's why there is anger and blame, because we didn't 'sow'. The whole world is paying the price of fatalities because of China's sowing.

[mindproject]

at the meat eaters suddenly outraged at animal cruelty. Only Chinese animal cruelty though.

And you shouldn't just be sceptical of the Chinese government either. Why discriminate on race grounds? All governments are controlled by psychopaths.

[RU562341]

The Chinese government should bear some responsibility, even if not for the initial outbreak, then for the cover up and silencing of the medical staff who tried to warn the world.

I believe that the brutal, fast lockdown did help to keep their numbers under control.

[BovaryX]

Sabine
Of what possible relevance is whether you were tested in London to a discussion about China's initial response to the virus and whether its statistical reports were an accurate representation of the situation? Back in January?China was ground zero. Are you unable to comprehend why allegations of silencing medical whistleblowers and manipulating data to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic contributed to its global advance?

[TheLadyAnneNeville]

@mindproject, yes I agree. Our Govt. is adept at shuffling numbers/information and coverups, to keep us all in line.

[Daffodil101]

China should have been transparent when the virus was identified. They could have sealed their borders.

Instead they allowed their citizens and others to travel out and cause this mess, which was of their own making in the first place due to wet market practices.

Pretty disgusting actually.

I hope we do much less trade with them in future. I don’t trust them to be honest, sadly.

Which is no reflection on the ordinary citizens of China, or those living in the UK. I have no issue with them. They need to force a change in their country, though.

[Glaceon]

I think the Chinese government needs to take responsibility. Pretty pissed off with them.