Why is China not seeing an increase in cases?

[ProseccoSupernova]

Or are they not just recording it?

It will take time, money and education to raise standards everywhere.

But surely @ShanghaiDiva China has plenty of resources to raise standards everywhere. If it can control it citizens in every other way? Or am I just being naive?

They could enforce food standards if they wanted to so clearly it’s not a priority. Wet markets are a long standing way of buying food. Customers want to see the animal alive before purchase. They look for certain breeds and characteristics to make specific dishes following tradition and that information isn’t available in a supermarket.

@AKissAndASmile

We are getting more and more evidence that it was.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=metro.co.uk/2020/09/11/new-evidence-shows-coronavirus-had-spread-to-the-west-before-christmas-13256899/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwjZgpOBpbHsAhV5TxUIHRtfCdcQFjAAegQIFhAC&usg=AOvVaw1oiaE1GKRx9yLF3Vo_0jOF&ampcf=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=metro.co.uk/2020/09/11/new-evidence-shows-coronavirus-had-spread-to-the-west-before-christmas-13256899/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwjZgpOBpbHsAhV5TxUIHRtfCdcQFjAAegQIFhAC&usg=AOvVaw1oiaE1GKRx9yLF3Vo_0jOF&ampcf=1

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China has the ability to test nine million people in five days. It's the harsh punishments for non compliance that means it's possible.

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It isn't arrogant to suggest China lies. You only had to watch the Chinese Ministers deny point blank that they wasn't loading shaved headed, blindfolded Muslims onto trains. Even when played the footage and people saying that their relatives are missing.

They sealed people into houses and pulled Adults out dead. Children had been with the dead bodies for upto five days. They have children tied up in orphanages and babies left to die. It isn't a society that I'd want to live in.

Interesting about increased traffic at Wuhan hospitals in October!

Nightclubs are open in Wuhan, no masks and no social distancing. They've also dismantled a makeshift hospital back into a sports centre for a basketball game with crowds.

WHO needs to take some of the blame given their insistence that on January 23rd 2020 it hadn’t left China.

What are you talking about?

13 January - WHO report the first known case outside China - Thailand
www.who.int/news-room/detail-redirect/13-01-2020-who-statement-on-novel-coronavirus-in-thailand

16 January - WHO report second known case outside China - Japan
www.who.int/csr/don/16-january-2020-novel-coronavirus-japan-ex-china/en/

By 23 January WHO were reporting cases in Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Taipei Municipality, China, Macau Special Administrative Region, United States of America and the Republic of Korea.
apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/330762

1:48 p.m. ET, January 23, 2020
World Health Organization: Wuhan coronavirus is not yet a public health emergency of international concern

“At this time, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general said at a conference in Geneva

9 million tests in 5 days. That’s why they have the edge now. We need to up the testing and tracing to a level that will help get on top of it.

It is partly about education. As previous posters have mentioned, many Chinese want to see fresh meat and fish. Fish in the supermarket is also sold live.
I think there are some misunderstandings regarding the Chinese approach. The uk govt told people with symptoms to stay home and we did not have the resources to test people and certainly no track and test back in March. The Chinese took the opposite approach: getting tested was mandatory if you had symptoms. Additionally private clinics were closed so the Chinese health authorities were able to control what was happening with testing.
With regard to harsh punishments: you need to have a green qr code on your phone to eg enter the metro or enter your child’s school: no code no entry. If you have been in contact with a confirmed case your code will no longer be green, get tested and negative then back to green and so it continues. When I was still living in China back in January I needed a face mask to enter the supermarket: no mask, no entry. Nobody threaten to arrest me for non compliance, I just could not enter.

@Oliversmumsarmy

*1:48 p.m. ET, January 23, 2020 World Health Organization: Wuhan coronavirus is not yet a public health emergency of international concern*

“At this time, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general said at a conference in Geneva

I don't know where that's from but it's selective quoting.

Here's the DG's full speech from 23 January:

www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-the-advice-of-the-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus

Here's a bit more context for that quote:

We know that there is human-to-human transmission in China, but for now it appears limited to family groups and health workers caring for infected patients.

At this time, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Declaring a PHEIC is different from saying there are cases outside the country of origin or that human-to-human transmission is occurring.

The decision is made by a committee of experts from around the world who must decide whether the disease outbreak meets the strict definition laid out in the International Health Regulations. This is a piece of international law that is binding on both WHO and on all member countries. There's a very high bar for declaring a PHEIC and the committee must come to a consensus. It's a really big deal because of the obligations it places on all member countries so the committee can't just go with a majority vote of 'probably' - that would not be lawful.

Here's the IHR if you fancy a read:

www.who.int/ihr/publications/9789241580496/en/

The committee met and deliberated on 22-23 January but could not reach a decision without further evidence so they prepared to reconvene within 10 days. A WHO delegation then visited China on 27-28 January and following their findings the IHR committee reconvened and declared a PHEIC on 30 January.

What do you think we'd have been able to do differently if the PHEIC had been declared on 23 instead of 30 January? It's not as if we took much notice anyway!

This is a good article for background, especially on the current version of the IHR:

www.theguardian.com/news/2020/apr/10/world-health-organization-who-v-coronavirus-why-it-cant-handle-pandemic

Agree. The uk was slow to act. Australia stopped entry from China on 1st Feb, the only exceptions being Australian citizens and those with permanent residency who had to then self isolate at home for 14 days.

@ProseccoSupernova

Or are they not just recording it?

Test Trace and Isolate.

They do what needs to be done and don't let the virus interfere with their lives.

They think we're crazy to give the covid-deniers and libertarians the time of day.

They bounced just earlier than us

@ShanghaiDiva

Agree. The uk was slow to act. Australia stopped entry from China on 1st Feb, the only exceptions being Australian citizens and those with permanent residency who had to then self isolate at home for 14 days.

Yes this. The UK was still allowing direct daily flights from Wuhan to London in February and into March. Unrestricted, no testing, no quarantine (I think they only stopped when China closed its borders).

Haven't read the full thread, but aren't China's borders now shut?

They've progressed with (early) treatments (and availability of these treatments) and they've started vaccinating I believe? If not, I know they've very close to that stage.

China’s borders have been closed since 27th March.
Expats are allowed back in after obtaining a new visa and need to undertake two weeks’ quarantine. Getting a new visa can be tricky and time consuming.
Yes, that’s true Chinese think we are nuts here in the uk. My dh’s colleagues want us to return to China as the uk is not safe.

@ShanghaiDiva

Agree. The uk was slow to act. Australia stopped entry from China on 1st Feb, the only exceptions being Australian citizens and those with permanent residency who had to then self isolate at home for 14 days.

That is early I didn’t realise Aus was so early.

Do you know if other countries were?

I recall Taiwan was early so googled

Taipei, Jan. 23 (CNA) Taiwan tightened its border control Thursday, mandating a health declaration by all visitors from China and banning the entry of residents of the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a deadly new coronavirus.

I also think the WHO advised not to close borders at that time?
Will read the link below later

Having experienced SARS the Taiwanese were very fast to respond. HK also introduced quarantine (from 10th Feb I think ) for people who had been in mainland China within 14 days before their arrival in HK which effectively closed the border to the Chinese mainlanders.

I agree SARS experience was a factor.

Aus didn’t have that but still very early, part of reason I found it surprising.

I was in Australia at the end of January and all airport border staff were wearing masks. Meanwhile in the uk in March we were allowing mass events such as racing at Cheltenham to go ahead and Boris was maintaining we would all be fine if we washed our hands for 20 seconds...

They wear masks in much more environments. and are much better at social distancing.
They dont have a vaccine thats a ridiculous thing to say.

I’m Aus / U.K. dual passport.

It’s really something they were so early. I missed that re masks etc

We were livening it up all through Feb then March here

Living

Together with Asian Flu and Avian flu, shouldn’t we be questioning why China seems to be the epicentre for these diseases.

They aren't. HIV started somewhere in Africa about 100 years ago (western colonialism was probably a factor). Ebola outbreaks started in Africa. We don't know where the 1918 flu pandemic started (possibly the US, but I think that theory has been discredited) but the (European) world war and the mass movement of troops was responsible for its rapid spread around the world. The large poluo epidemics were a western world phenomenon caused by increased hygiene. Sweating sickness started in England. Measles is thought to have jumped to humans in the middle east in the 11 to 12th century (a time when the islamic world and china were both much more advanced than the west).

You don't need unsanitary markets to spread disease, anywhere humans and animals are in close quarters (i.e. every farm or any household with pets or animals kept for food) provides an opportunity for disease to spread from animals to humans. That can be beneficial (cow pox), relatively harmless (ringworm) or deadly (see above).

It is racist to suggest the Chinese are somehow doing something wrong and dirty that does not happen elsewhere and they are not uniquely likely to have a disease start there.

@MarshaBradyo

I also think the WHO advised not to close borders at that time? Will read the link below later

No they didn't, again because of the IHR - it places an extremely high bar on the decision to recommend travel and trade restrictions.

The Guardian article linked above explains why, but basically when SARS happened, the then WHO DG advised travel restrictions and the whole world threw a complete shitfit. The IHR was rewritten after that to make it much, much harder to recommend travel or trade restrictions.

That was a decision voted on by all member states. That's our collective responsibility as individual countries and as a planet, it's not down to the current leadership of WHO. The current leadership has followed international law to the letter as far as I can tell.

It's a bit rich to complain about things WHO did not recommend when we didn't even bother following the things they did recommend.

23 January - We recommend exit screening at airports as part of a comprehensive set of containment measures.

Also I have noticed a big overlap between the group of people who think WHO was wrong not to advise border closures in January, and the group of people who think the virus has been internationally widespread since last autumn. That doesn't make much sense to me.