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.

[bluebell34567]

wet markets should be banned and i am not sure about their cooking methods.

[Wehttam]

Good luck OP you’re in with the lions now 🙏🏻

[SabineSchmetterling]

It’s relevant because the statement you took issue with was

“ 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 think China’s figures are wrong and they’ve deliberately kept them low. I also said that I think ours are wrong, more due to inability to test enough rather than deliberate manipulation.

I think maybe we don’t disagree as much as you seem to think.

[BovaryX]

I think the obvious and significant difference is that if the allegations about silencing whistleblowers and manipulating data during the initial phase of this virus are true, that contributed to its global spread. As for those trying to draw equivalence between the actions of a totalitarian regime and liberal democracies? I suggest they watch Chernobyl.

[SabineSchmetterling]

We had all the same information, and just as much evidence that China may not be trustworthy as Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore etc. Our governments decided that the risk to us was low, they were counting on the spread from Asia being limited as with SARS and Bird Flu. It was a gamble and it hasn’t paid off.

It wasn’t even economy vs lives. The economic impact is going to be worse in countries that acted later.

[DippyAvocado]

The Chinese government is repressive and extremely controlling. IMO these traits will allow China to come out of this pandemic better off than some Western countries because of their ability to control and track movement. I'm not saying this is something all governments should aspire to, but I think the control the Chinese government has over its citizens will make it easier to control the spread of the virus. They probably are not reporting their data correctly, but Western governments still have to take responsibility for their own failings. There was a great deal of complacency at the beginning, with most probably assuming Covid-19 would be similar to SARS and be confined largely to Asia.

Also, the biotech industry in China is booming, thanks to heavy state funding and lower regulation around the sharing of parent data.

Once all this is done, I think the Chinese will emerge as even more powerful, globally.

[BigChocFrenzy]

Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore have had previous experience of dealing with epidemics from China, especially SARS

• and knew the regime there lies constantly.
  
  The deaths in China, with a population of 1.4 billion spread over a vast geographical area, are very difficult to determine,
  but it seems likely that the real death total has been covered up and is MUCH higher
  
  These countries also had the organisation set up from the previous epidemics, because they knew there would be another from China
  And another after COVID.
  And ....
  
  btw, European governments are finding that a significant amount of the PPE and test kits so "generously" donated by China is defective and has to be junked

[MarshaBradyo]

They also implemented central systems before the pandemic which took time and money.

[MarshaBradyo]

And no idea it would happen.

[openova]

Even if wet markets are banned if people want exotic meats there will beca black market trade similer to bush meat in Africa. Its the same story everywhere man always finds a way to justify fufilling his desires regardless of the consequences. We're a selfish species.

[SabineSchmetterling]

We knew all of that too. They may have had more direct experience with SARS, but our medical experts had access to all the same information that they did.

We have had over 15 years since SARS to put in place measures to deal with a pandemic. They took this seriously, we were complacent.

If our experts and governments believed that China were being 100% honest then they were too credulous. China holds the responsibility for this virus taking hold there but our government could have prevented widespread infection here and they didn’t. That is their responsibility. This isn’t party political either, I’m not sure any other party would have done much differently.

[Sarahandco]

There will need to be lots of studies after this has been dealt with and there will be lessons for every aspect of our society.

One aspect (one of many) that needs to be looked at is mobile phones and how they have been used in China to track society. We need to make sure they do not become mandatory in the future. We need to take a step back.

[MarshaBradyo]

We did but direct threat changes behaviour.

Swine flu was our last threat and it was no where near numbers.

The political reflects mood if people which is easier to garner if threat was real last time, eg post -SARS

[formerbabe]

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

Surely from the perspective of human health, the problem is not so much the cruelty but the hygiene?

[SabineSchmetterling]

Yep.

That’s why our government’s scientific advisers include behavioural scientists. They should have been aware that psychological biases would be pushing us to under-react. Interestingly, they seem to have been affected by those same biases, and failed to see a risk that was seemingly very apparent to lots of East Asian governments and their experts.

I anticipate Matthew Syed writing a book about this in a few years time.

[BovaryX]

China holds the responsibility for this virus taking hold there but

There are reports by a medical doctor who has now 'disappeared' that the initial cases occurred back in November 2019. What steps did China take to confine this within its borders?

[jobhunter7]

Do you think this all will have any impact on the way China is run? Gorbachev said the Chernobyl disaster led to fall of Communism in Russia.

[MarshaBradyo]

There will be so much to analyse post this. Politics and culture.

On a more frivolous note I hope whoever does the film does it justice. Was musing on who I’d choose for director.

[SabineSchmetterling]

Why would we expect a government that treats its own people so poorly to confine the virus within their borders? Why would you expect the Chinese government to care more about our people than their own?

What steps did we take to stop it entering the country and isolating cases that did enter to prevent spread here?

[BigChocFrenzy]

There is at least one Chinese Doctor who recently reported on deaths there - who has been silenced in the last few weeks

[UYScuti]

They won't ban it, they will ban people from speaking about things that the rest of the world disapproves of.
Saving face is the only concern (apart from gaining power)

[BovaryX]

Why would we expect a government that treats its own people so poorly to confine the virus within their borders?

Why would anyone wish to excuse criticism of this regime's failure to be transparent about a virus which has put the entire globe into house arrest? I wonder if this had originated in Kansas instead of Wuhan if people would be as nonchalant about any analysis of what the initial response to it was and whether that aided its rapid escalation across the planet?

[oldbeforem]

@SmileEachDay taking responsibility could mean not trying to claim it really started from the US or Italy. And taking steps to ensure it won’t happen again.

[BovaryX]

What steps did we take to stop it entering the country and isolating cases that did enter to prevent spread here?

It is quite incredible that the UK has not closed its borders and imposed draconian restrictions on who can enter the country and from where. As many other countries have done for their own protection.

[SabineSchmetterling]

China’s government are shit. But pretending that the way this has spread across the globe was inevitable and could not have been prevented by anything Western governments did will prevent us from learning very important lessons for the next pandemic... which could be something deadlier.

We shouldn’t be rushing to excuse our governments’ failings because China’s government are worse. We need to learn lessons about early intervention, testing and containment. We have to look very carefully at how we responded.