Xenophobia and Covid variants

[Bekindbepositive]

Recently started seeing many hateful comments regarding particular country due to raising no of new variants, e.x Posters blaming variant spread due to not sticking to quarantine rules.
Only people travelling from amber countries need to isolate not the whole household, as far as I am aware. So even though most people quarantine it may spreed through from someone in household who doesn’t needed to quarantine. And please stop saying we should close borders as UK is heavily dependent on exports and many people have family members outside UK who they may need to visit in case of emergencies.
Just a rant...

They do like the uk way of life, but we’re genuinely concerned that people were not wearing masks when out, no quarantine, limited testing and genuinely felt the uk was no safe.
As a comparison, the city of 7 million I lived in had no deaths (I cannot confirm this, but no lockdown since March 202O does suggest there isn’t a problem).

@WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith

Then we shall be communist and behave as they want us to.

No need to be communist to implement effective controls. South Korea? Taiwan? NZ? Australia?

Jeez yes we handled it bad but we would not have needed to handle it at all if China had not made and released the bloody thing ....and it keeps happening this is the 5th one jesus!! Maybe blame where it came from and still wet markets are open

@WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith

Then we shall be communist and behave as they want us to.

No need to be communist to implement effective controls... Taiwan? NZ? Singapore? Australia?

And I no way blame any of the Chinese people at all I blame the ccp for hiding it and still continue to do so ...

@Tealightsandd

Maybe blame the Chinese government who let this shit out

We didn't have to let it in. We certainly didn't need to keep importing any and all new strains. Nor did we have to let cases spread so wildly out of control. Time and time again.

they way they treat people including their own is vile !

That may be so, but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. We have plenty of our own human rights abuses to sort out before pointing the finger elsewhere. For example, our treatment of the disabled, which was condemned by the UN.

Erm, yes - you are right on the UK not having a crystal clear record.

But in the UK we do not put a million Uyghurs into camps just for being Muslim; we do not fire missiles near Ireland and try and claim countries that are independent (Taiwan); we do not oppress parts of our country which were offered significant freedoms (HK); we do not force women to have hysterectomies and unwanted abortions; we do not put addicts into forced labour camps for 'reeducation'; we do not constantly rehash historical grievances, some of them now very old, in order to keep feeding the population with a sense that 'the West' is constantly trying to 'take over' China; our country is not run by what is effectively a mafia; in the UK we have the NHS whereas good luck to you if you are a bog standard Chinese citizen and don't have money to pay for things lik cancer treatment...... and we could go on.

And before anyone calls me a China-basher, I am a massive fan of the country and its people, and have visited multiple times. But I do not walk around with my eyes closed to the enormous problems that stare anyone in the face when considering today's China.

@Loubellbell

Jeez yes we handled it bad but we would not have needed to handle it at all if China had not made and released the bloody thing ....and it keeps happening this is the 5th one jesus!! Maybe blame where it came from and still wet markets are open

And we are back to the wet markets. My mumsnet bingo card is nearly complete, just waiting for the Uighur comments. Wet markets are still open and are normal markets which sell meat, fish, vegetables etc. They are found all over Asia and I shopped in one near my house: no bats, no pangolins, no exotic species. Markets which trade in exotic species were banned in Feb last year. I hope this is being enforced.

And their economy is booming buying up U.K. companies selling us dud ppe and tests... blamed everyone else when being called out including Australia we have a fking right to know where this came from they want to rule the world!

@ShanghaiDiva and yet you still back the Chinese government after all the stuff they do

Not the people - CCP all the way. I’ve explained earlier (maybe not this thread) there are OBVIOUSLY many, many, many variables and differences between western countries, their economies, geographical locations, environmental factors, political factors, genetic and age demographics, healthcare systems, overall health, reporting, honesty, lies etc etc etc

It's not some race to the bottom Nearly. Shit treatment of minority groups in China, does not make slightly less shit treatment here any more acceptable. Are you suggesting the government's complete disregard for people with disabilities is in any way acceptable, "cuz China does it worse"?

[quote Loubellbell]@ShanghaiDiva and yet you still back the Chinese government after all the stuff they do [/quote]
You back the UK government after all the stuff they do?

We have our own human rights issues.

We can't claim moral superiority.

@Orf1abc

It's not some race to the bottom Nearly. Shit treatment of minority groups in China, does not make slightly less shit treatment here any more acceptable. Are you suggesting the government's complete disregard for people with disabilities is in any way acceptable, "cuz China does it worse"?

Not at all. Clearly treatment of the disabled has been horrendous in the UK and should be addressed. Including the way unborn children with disabilities are treated.

But when you're considering the biggest dictatorship the world has ever known, you also need to have a sense of proportion.....

@Orf1abc

It's not some race to the bottom Nearly. Shit treatment of minority groups in China, does not make slightly less shit treatment here any more acceptable. Are you suggesting the government's complete disregard for people with disabilities is in any way acceptable, "cuz China does it worse"?

Oh and putting a million Uyghurs in camps is not 'slightly less shit treatment' than what happens here..... seriously.

@ShanghaiDiva

No worries, because this ain’t a game of bingo is it?

[quote Loubellbell]@ShanghaiDiva and yet you still back the Chinese government after all the stuff they do [/quote]
I have seen the very unpleasant side of life in China as I have travelled extensively in the country including Tibet and Xinjiang province and there are many things I disagree with.
However, when it comes to handling the pandemic (and I was living there in january 2020) the controls the govt implemented were effective:
Mass testing
Tracing of contacts
Preventing movement between provinces
Mask wearing
Effective quarantine
Free Transport to hotels for all arrivals for quarantine- my husband was given a hazmat suit on arrival in China to protect him and then transported five hours by bus to our home town for quarantine- all paid for by the govt.
As I stated upthread my dh’s colleagues worked from home for three weeks and have been back at work ever since, no subsequent lockdowns, all schools back by June last year, inter school completions taking place etc

What does being disabled have to do with this?

There is a reason the United Nations condemned the UK treatment of disabled people.

It's very telling how it's dismissed as 'not a really bad thing' by people including on here.

People have starved to death and others driven to suicide because of UK policies on disability benefits and lack of access to care and housing.

And then there's sending Covid positive patients into care homes full of vulnerable sitting duck residents.

We cannot claim moral superiority.

@ShanghaiDiva

Yes we know that the CCP know what they are doing here. We know that they know how to fully control, track and scare their people. We know that they are better at this than the UK and other western economies. Doesn’t mean we have to follow their exact lead now. I don’t trust that would be in the best interests of our economy long-term.

@WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith

What does being disabled have to do with this?

It has to do with us not being in a position to claim moral superiority, when it comes to pointing fingers about human rights.

[quote WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith]@ShanghaiDiva

No worries, because this ain’t a game of bingo is it?[/quote]
IME it is.
Usually the next comment is that I am a CCP plant.

Where should we have sent the covid positive patients who went to the care homes?

[quote WuhanClanAintNothingToFuckWith]@ShanghaiDiva

Yes we know that the CCP know what they are doing here. We know that they know how to fully control, track and scare their people. We know that they are better at this than the UK and other western economies. Doesn’t mean we have to follow their exact lead now. I don’t trust that would be in the best interests of our economy long-term.[/quote]
I don’t think you have to scare people to effectively manage the pandemic.
Back in January when I lived in China, we were scared as we had very little information on how the virus was transmitted and what the effects were.
Clearly the Chinese govt has the advantage of managing a huge population and they are very good at that.
I am not suggesting we follow their exact lead, but much of what they did was extremely sensible and could have been implemented here:
No movement between tiers
Increased testing
Quarantine for arrivals introduced earlier.
Those countries which have been effective in managing the pandemic have a similar approach even though their political systems are very different eg quarantine in Australia and restricting movements between states.

In the past (before many of us here were born), we had isolation hospitals and sanatoriums for things like TB.

We used to understand infection control and isolation.

What we should have done is had some Covid positive care homes, separate from the others

But of course, with pandemic border restrictions - including real quarantine and proper test and trace, we wouldn't have got to that stage in the first place.

Proper pandemic border control with test and trace. That's what we should have done.

Yes I understand (and do think we should tighten border controls-tracing contacts of contacts etc) But we are just not China, at all, in any way. The freedom of movement of goods/people IS our functioning economy that we are totally dependant on. Politically we do not have that level of control/fear. Socially can you remember the anger, uproar, disbelief, conspiracies, anti-gov rhetoric and disobedience from UK people. Can u imagine the effects if we had done a full scale China right from the start. It simply was not ever possible. We also didn’t have their experience (as a nation) stifling pandemics and full cooperation or trust of the people is a must for that to be a possibility.