China does not have "old habits". What it has is political system that is unable and unwilling to face up to mistakes and accept responsibility. It would have more public support if it placed the welfare of its citizens first but the party welfare, in the minds of those in power, is more about protecting themselves and staying in power. China will not change. At least not voluntarily. There will be more healthcare and other social and economic events that demand prompt government action. But, as long as the old line political hacks are in power China will be paralyzed and the pay the price. This time its the critical illness of thousands and deaths of hundreds....it can all too easily get worse fast.
61
China should forbid the consumption of exotic animals. Firstly it is not safe! Secondly, it grosses people across continents! In a globalized economy that is reckless, gives China a bad name, is bad for their economy.
49
@Nicholas
I am sure there is something that is considered normal here that grosses out people in other continents.
37
Simple Treatments for Colds, Flu, and Pneumonia
To summarise:
1) Breath deeply all day to prevent aching muscles which could lead to death.
2) Roll on your side to cough up a lung at a time of mucus, to prevent drowning.
3) Go to bed an hour earlier to increase your energy that you will need to fight with tomorrow.
4) Imagine doing exercises to increase muscle mass because your body will be using your muscles as energy.
5) Stay warm.
9
The skittishness on the part of the Chinese government is likely related to the fact that this virus is a weaponized version of coronavirus which apparently escaped containment at the nearby Chinese Bio Weapons facility.
7
It’s good for American business. Healthcare prices will rise. The privatization of healthcare in America will be a win Republicans can take to the bank.
6
Pardon me? You meant a win that GOP reps and senators can take to the bank, I’m sure. The people struggling to pay medical bills? Not so much.
22
Made me laugh, despite the seriousness of the current situation.
6
Excellent example of greed and the diabolical trajectory of human kind.
9
News gets better when you hide viruses and the strain it is. It is definitely out of Pandora’s box now.
If the vaccine company is Trump’s, the prices will go up drastically.
19
@Jay WB That’s right, every problem in the world has some bearing on President Trump. Well, not really.
7
Gratitude for the courageous journalists who have once again, like our brave first responders, dive into the heart of the emergency to keep us informed, especially when information is the best way to save lives.
77
Thanks NYT!
An excellent piece of journalism and threading the pieces and sides together.
76
Well the line was that China was advancing in AI yet this article suggests that they are not even close to confronting a health problem even when it is exploding right in front of them.
Here are a few suggestions:
1- Close to 100 to 120 million pigs were suppose to be put down to curb an infection that was spreading rapidly a few months ago.
2- if the pigs were not all put down and an experiment on these pigs went the wrong way then it is possible that the cause of the infection may be tied to experimentation and then that the pigs were sold back into society. Pork is a huge part of the Chinese diet.
3- China may have its own bio lab testing center which may be tied to the rapid expansion of this disease accidentally. A check up should be conducted on this labs last 8 weeks.
10
The United States should stop allowing flights from China. Let’s get this plague figured out.
347
@Pryor - And the Trump administration cut the funding for the CDC and routinely interferes with scientists (remember the doctored map Trump displayed of a storm track?) and denigrates scientists.
We need to vote for honesty, transparency and sensible funding of the CDC. Not what we are seeing now.
256
@Pryor Yes, get the plague sorted out, on less budget than ever before thanks to the disgusting priorities of Trump, I reckon the person chosen by the majority of voters in Texas...so are you ready to stop spending to stop funding the wealthy in America so that the majority are taken care of as they used to be, when America was greater?
33
@Pryor
I think today almost every airline has cancelled flights to and from China.
13
Very scary how China handled this crises. It’s even more scary that the Trump is dragging America in the same direction.
30
Why do Americans have any expectations ever for positive outcomes when dealing with China's totalitarian dictatorship? Why do we pretend they are somehow less bad than the people in charge in Moscow?
Apologies for the language, but we were suckered into dealing with them when Mao was in power, and we have never really woken up. Even today, people in Washington, New York, and Silicon Valley who make money dealing with China continue to tell us it's somehow essential we continue to get along, despite the trillions of dollars Beijing has taken from us one way or another.
This Coronavirus disaster is just another outcome from s nation run by a paranoid dictatorship who never, ever, tell the outside world the truth. Most Americans are simply ignorant about China. It would be interesting to find out how many of us had ever heard of Wuhan before this virus, a city with a population larger than New York City.
We have the resources and medical knowledge to help the Chinese people. We should do that, even if the virus were totally isolated in China.
But we're insane to continue to do anything that helps keep that sick totalitarian dictatorship in power.
198
@West Coaster
This is the type of politician that Trump is in bed with. He is living in a delusional world with the Russian enabled GOP.
They don't care and have destroyed the American system to do anything helpful in the world.
Despite what China is saying thousands of people are probably dead and since Trump doesn't believe in science, better believe he will take care of himself if this virus hits our shores. We are not prepared for anything, not election controls, out of control technology and no health care.
26
@West Coaster Our corporations want to tap that market. They see dollars and they don't mind corruption, cruelty, criminality, abuse and an authoritarian dictatorship. Indeed, they are having one installed here in the US. So, we the people aren't generally fooled on that exactly. Where we get fooled is in who we elect and believing that they will side with us vs. China and the corporations. Both the GOP and the DFL want our corporations in China.
26
@Chris
Agreed. It's time to change that.
To his credit, Trump started the push-back, though I'm not confident he will carry it through. The upside though is that he's highlighted a problem every president before him had talked about but done nothing substantive about.
It's going to be economically painful to trade a lot less with China, which is what we need to do if we want to weaken their dictators. But it's going to be a lot more painful in a decade or two if we keep funding them like we are now.
We need a president who will deliver that message, not lie to us about the possibility of a "great" trade deal to be had. Nobody on the scene today seems to be prepared to do that hard duty. Someone better step up soon.
20
If any readers from China is reading this, they may get a better idea of why hong kongers are adamant about preserving the one country two systems policy.
461
@kj
Worth noting, of course, that the Times is blocked in mainland China. So are many others that most of us take for granted as sources of news.
Chinese use a variety of ways to get over the "great firewall", but they're few in number in a country of ~1.4 billion, most of whom eat a steady diet of propaganda from the CCP.
29
Social media, Chinese state media, and the people in China have been investigating, revealing and critising the slowness and lack of transparency by the local government of Wuhan and Hubei, the province in which Wuhan is located, since late January. There’s been a lot of shocking incompetence by the local authorities revealed.
Of course the people are aware, having lived in China and as part of China, they understand how China work. In this case though, it really does seem that the central government has been pushing for transparency and fast response. It was the local government authorities that initially hid the seriousness of the situation.
8
@West Coaster Meanwhile in another country millions choose to ignore the Times and other "lamestream" media and consume a steady diet of propaganda from fox news.
16
What a timely illustration of what happens when the party line trumps inconvenient truths, when dishonesty in politics is tolerated.
A lesson for all Republicans.
34
This horrible type of authoritarianism, where truth doesn't matter as long as the ruling party looks good, is so endemic in China. And, as evident in recent times, is starting to hold in the USA as well. My feeling is that most people are simply not capable of wanting genuine freedom - that left to their own devices - will gravitate to Authoritarian systems - as long as it's 'their team'.
52
State-sanctioned propaganda and state-sanctioned intransigence in a potential pandemic illustrate the limitations of overly centralized government, no matter the form of government.
It's not that China is incapable of responding to such an emergency; it's the ideology stands in the way.
In another society, like the United States', are we so different that our own inherent societal limitations would not allow us to respond quickly enough to a potential pandemic? And are we even prepared to deal with an epidemic, let alone a pandemic?
21
@Akhenaton When 40% of our population deny truth in front of their eyes, we may have a bigger problem!
18
@Akhenaton
The US is now all-in on disinformation and propaganda. We cut funding to handle problems exactly like this one. Many Americans are considered disposable by this administration. The work of scientists here is consistently suppressed.
Could we handle a pandemic? I don't see many reasons to suggest we could.
15
Let me see, dedicated career professionals who try to sound the alarm on a public danger, silenced by know-nothing politicians who think denial is an appropriate response, and value their own behinds above the public safety and good - why does that sound familiar?
908
@HHB Thanks. The same thing is happening here.Sad days.
13
Anyone remember the doctored hurricane map? Need out today that it was a political cover up. So no, I’m not surprised.
14
@HHB Number of migrant children separated from their parents and detained? Number head trauma and brain injuries due to "harmless" missile strike in Iran?
15
Until the Chinese emerge from the Stone Age and eliminate wet markets, flies and rotting carcasses as food sources, no amount of transparency and openness will stem the continued spread of new viruses in the functional equivalent of biological warfare on every nation on earth.
74
@Blue Dog Besides the disgusting hygiene in the wet markets, there is the unbelievable cruelty to the animals.
49
Listen up Americans: this is what happens in autocratic countries. They hid the truth, lie, cover up.....yeah all that. Xi, Putin, Jong Un, etc...you know those guys that Trump admires.
173
@Hortencia
Trump also emulates them and uses the US Constitution as a road map on how best to hide the truth, lie and cover up.
12
@Hortencia
He doesn't just admire them. He emulates them.
14
Why are people surprised at China's behaviour?
There have been totalitarian regimes in China for centuries. They are adapted to obedience.
A few Chinese actions in the 20th Century:
The Cultural Revolution.
Tiananmen Square.
Hong Kong Democracy Protests.
Invasion & Occupation of Tibet
Attacks on Chinese Muslims
Fattening & eating of dogs.
Use of Endangered Species (Elephant, Rhino, Tiger) in Chinese "medicine".
Years ago, when we condemned the Boers for apartheid, nobody called us racist.
To condemn the actions of the Chinese Totalitarian government is not "racist" - it is a statement of fact.
Or does cheap, shoddy, poorly made Chinese rubbish trump all common sense?
371
To all those, who rightfully criticize the Chinese authority, may I respectfully remind you how Ronald Regan handled the Aids crisis!
Politicians all over the world make terrible decisions all the time.
125
Explain to me how this is similar to that scenario at all.
2
The Chinese could have learned from this. It seems like our own government has not either and is functioning from this backwards place of being reactive and not being able to forecast and establish an action plan. Why did it takes us so long to stop flights coming in from China?
2
speaking of delaying the fight against the coronavirus...
"Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response"
"As it improvises its way through a public health crisis, the United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/
29
For China to have the gall to complain that U.S. airlines canceled flights to their country is beyond the pale. The responsibility for any deaths around the world due to this virus rests with them, from their lack of hygiene and primitive eating habits, to their lack of regard for society's well-being.
46
@Roberta
Replace "China" with "Sierra Leone" or "DRC" and you would be a racist. Somehow, it's fine to say these things about China and the Chinese people.
3
Authoritarian governments maintain their rule by exercising control and refusing, or punishing, all feedback. At their heart is distrust of the people and their needs, which are considered transitory, affected by emotion, and unimportant to the grand movement of the government, which is often directly over the feelings of the people to get to a desired state. The result is that when a catastrophic illness strikes, the immediate reaction of even low-level officials is to disbelieve those affected, even doctors, out of a general distrust of the uncontrolled people. Control will be maintained and illness denied until such time as the outbreak infects a sizable portion of workers and progress toward national goals is delayed. Only then will the central government respond, without knowledge of the disease, its true extent, its etiology, and most importantly its incubation period. Without this knowledge all the central government can do is restrict movement and begin to gather basic data on where the cases are appearing. In China's case, the recent New Year movement of people makes this problematical at best, and potentially catastrophic. If the entire country has been seeded with seemingly-well people already carrying and spreading the coronavirus, they are weeks away from the worst effects, and looking at a pronounced and debilitating health crisis. We are looking at only the beginning of a paralyzing outbreak.
137
@Pete Rogan
Very interesting post, nail on the head, thank you.
10
@Pete Rogan Exactly. They seemed to really kick things into gear once the global markets took notice.
5
@Pete Rogan
We should probably take the figures that they are reporting of those infected and double them to get an accurate reading.
This could be the beginning of the end of Xi.
7
Every person who lives under an authoritarian regime, Communist or otherwise, or who thinks Socialism, or other strong central government models are preferable to communism should watch HBO's Chernobyl, and then read this story about how China mishandled the coronavirus outbreak. This is the future under a Sanders or Warren administration.
23
@MJG It seems that you are not familiar with the differences between various types of government systems. The Chinese and Russian systems of Communism are extremely different from what either Sanders or Warren proposes. Their versions of socialism are not authoritarian, they are along the lines of the Scandinavian countries.
I'm sure Sanders and Warren are horrified by what is happening in China. They would not be emulating China if they are elected. In fact, Trump's lies and secrecy are very similar to the Chinese government response...
32
@MJG This is the most absurd comment I've read all year. Sanders and Warren have nothing to do with Communism or totalitarianism. Please, educate yourself.
43
@MJG It takes a special kind of thinking to be against the candidates who promote universal healthcare access in the face of a pandemic.
40
It's easy to criticize China. But here at home, we have an anti-science Republican party and President tearing up all manner of environmental regulations that protect our land, air, water, and climate. And the Constitution, for good measure.
1612
@Rich Irony would have it that Trump's Trade War is instrumental in making China a fair and transparent player concerning international engagement. No deal or policy is safe. As far as Trump is concerning everything and everybody needs to renegotiate. He can bring tyrants, bent on aggrandizing power and money, to heal; but, some issues that were inching forward have come to a halt.
14
@Rich His Majesty, King Donald, to whom the GOP has pledged absolute fealty, falling on their faces in extreme kow-tow, has told us all manner of warnings about environmental damage are alarmist hoaxes. Politics, above not only science but also common sense, also reins in our foundering republic. Touring the country in endless electioneering, the King rallies his minions to continuing ignorance. What does he care? It’s making him all more rich and powerful. A lovely war is coming this election season just to assure icing on the many layered dessert course of fear, ignorance and loathing to assure the re-election of his Highness. Even in inglorious death, his followers will believe they are martyrs, not marks of the world’s greatest con man. Everything is set for the great economic crash the end of this decade, no matter who is elected or seizes political power. Running the country based on who rallies the greatest anger and hatred bakes in the breakdown to come.
46
@Rich I agree that our government has problems of its own. At least we cannot become physically sick from them.
14
This virus has the potential of bringing down the Chinese government. Unless they throw a whole lot more resources at this crisis, the world will hold China accountable, and the Chinese people themselves will realize that their leaders do not have their best interests in mind.
4
Now reports are coming out about an additional bird flu.
Time for the human occupants of this magnificent planet to start eating LESS animals! There’s really little downside to eating a lot more plant foods! Good for YOU, and good for OUR planet!
6
Commerce in exotic animals extends outside China.
I have seen it first hand.
Indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia capture them
for the cash value. Whether they are trafficked all the
way to China is unknown to me but I suspect so. Goods
will flow to where the demand is. Drug trade in the US
is an example of this.
6
Oh, well. Metal shavings in toothpaste, plastic in other foodstuffs, rivets that crack, plasterboard that molds up -- why not viruses caused similarly by irresponsibility, lax quality control, and cost cutting?
4
‘“I realized that we had underestimated the enemy,” she said.’
Is the doctor referring here to the coronavirus or to the government?
2
The worker on the left is not wearing gloves.
Now that’s scary.
4
For The Chinese communist party it is all about saving face. This is true in the wide Asian community too.
It is easier to cover up something and blame someone else rather than taking ownership of the problem and solving it.
One would have thought that after the SARs epidemic they would have banned the eating of wild animals.
Despite having multiple skyscrapers everywhere, massive tech companies and boasting about their AI capabilities, they are still a bunch hillbillies with no regard for hygiene, civic consciousness and basic good manners.
3
China’s Chernobyl. A medical meltdown.
3
Tourism is New Zealands biggest income earner and it will affect NZ badly. Probably the USA as well, as read somewhere Chinese are your third biggest group of tourists who visit the USA.
5
Amazing: The Times publishes an article on how the brutal Chinese dictatorship represses its doctors and healthcare system in a crisis, and the most recommended poster here, Rich, only can think of how much he dislikes the GOP in the USA.
And Rich says, "It's easy to criticize China."
That's Rich!
5
The US would do the same thing and you all know it.
2
If this virus continues to spread rapidly, killing 3% of its victims, we may see millions dead before this plague is over. And we should all blame the unaccountable communist dictators, beginning with Li, for causing this scourge. The evil empire spends its days trying to suppress freedom among the Uyghars and the people in Hong Kong, rather than focusing on the things that matter. I hope Xi and his henchmen face the justice they deserve.
3
Nicholas Kristof was right !
1
Authoritarian regimes are a grave threat to the world on many levels. Now our country is in danger of becoming one too. Trump is a far greater threat to the US than this virus.
7
Back in 2002 during the SARS epidemic, the Chinese government taking SARS patients out the back door of the hospital in Hang Zhou and putting them in yellow cabs and driving them around as the World Health Organization walked in the front door.
This is China's Chernobyl.
2
Everyone loves China when they’re getting cheap iPhones and shoes... they are still a communist country with low ethics and a horrible human rights record, why is everyone surprised by this?
6
Look carefully folks. We are already on the verge of that here in the United States and it would be really easy to let it slip fully. When you have so-called “news” outlets like Fox News that tell you that up is down and black is white and that actual news outlets that report facts are fake news we are a fair piece there already. I teach my environmental chemistry students about the Four Pests campaign during China’s Great Leap Forward combined with agricultural practices forced by the government that flew in the face of science that led to a famine that killed tens of millions of people. They don’t allow that to be taught in their schools. That could very easily happen here. This nascent pandemic comes at a time when science-denying idiots are running the show. We are in a lot of trouble.
7
A national leader putting secrecy ahead of transparency????????
Hmmmm, sounds like a leader I know.
3
Just wait to see how the impeached president responds once the Coronavirus spreads in the US. He’ll blame President Obama or downplay the contagion.
3
Despite the text disclaimer under it, the lead photo should not be there because it implies a virus death.
1
Of course they did. That is exactly what totalitarians always do.
2
China's Chernobyl?
The Chinese are a totalitarian dictatorship, why would anyone expect even basic transparency and honesty from them? They lie and deceive as a matter of every day policy.
4
It is fascinating to observe the news cycle as the House managers lost their Motion in the Senate Trial. Suddenly a media blitzkrieg with daily briefings, Editorials, guest op-eds from law professors, and bull-blown multi-media public relations lobbying, is gone dead quiet--the wind gone from the Left's sails; and not a word about larger issues the House process represented. Now it's the China virus in full media coverage. Perhaps an interesting question is, which is actually the virus; who the carrier?
3
One wonders if Nature has had enough of our murderous species.
7
This has always been Chinas MO to disaster-lie, cover-up, lie, cover-up, lie some more. They will never change. The world should have a single response to them -as soon as any health problem crops up from there, no outbound travel until the problem is resolved. You can go there to help, but unless you agree in advance to quarantine, you can’t come back till the illness stops spreading.
3
Lies, cover-ups. There the Chinese go again, stealing American ideas.
5
Dr. Li please continue doing your job with ethical and professional conduct regardless of your government’s secrecy and dishonesty.
8
Dr. Liz should get the Nobel Peace Prize.
5
"The first case of coronavirus being spread by a person with no symptoms has been found"
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-case-coronavirus-spread-person-no-symptoms-found-germany
2
Excellent reportage NYT!
It is easy to condemn the Chinese government again for suppressing vital details, but the American Senate recently did the same thing!
Coverup, secrecy, concealment and suppression are quite evident in the political arena of POTUS and his puppet Mitch.
Ironfisted governing with threats and taunts are now commonplace In DC!
DT joins the ranks of Xi Jinping and Putin as masters of deception!
6
Chinese authorities avoid embarrassment by ducking.
2
This does seem like a Donald Trump/Republican approach to a crisis.
8
Less trustworthy than even the US. Let that marinate for a bit.
7
Looks like there are two ways the next pandemic will happen (or is starting), first, through the fear of a dictatorial, autocratic regime needing to appear monolithic and powerfully in control; the second, through the idiocy of government officials who deny science.
5
Now that paper surgical masks are in short supply, I'd like to point out that if you own a sewing machine and have beginner level sewing skills, you can sew your own washable and reusable DIY surgical mask in less than an hour. I suggest you use100% cotton fabric and make several masks for each person so everyone can have a fresh mask each day. I also suggest you wash the masks in hot water, detergent and bleach after every use so they're clean and germ-free.
Youtube has several free videos that show you how to construct your surgical mask step by step. The videotape below is the one I watched, and it was simple and clear. But there are other good videos on youtube, too. The only thing I would add is that you should also insert a very thin wire into the top strip and sandwich it in with a zig-zag stitch so you can bend the top of the mask to make it fit securely around your nose. Stay well and happy sewing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB2xyo-uSSU
PS The NYTimes should run an article and create a video that shows step by step how to sew these DIY surgical masks and keep them clean. It would be a public service to your subscribers and readers.
11
"At critical turning points, Chinese authorities put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm or political embarrassment."
Given China's history of disease outbreaks, the African Swine fever, the SARS and now the Coronavirus I am not surprised about Chinese authorities secrecy.
China's leaders may declare victory against the outbreak of this deadly coronavirus and they will undoubtedly credit the Communist Party of China's leadership but the truth is just the opposite, the party is again responsible.
Even the Wuhan's Community Party chief, Ma Guogang told the state broadcaster CCTV that the city should have taken measures sooner to contain the virus.
The first case of coronavirus was reported on Dec. 8, the Wuhan municipal health commission didn’t issue an official notice until several weeks later.. And, since then, Wuhan officials have downplayed the seriousness of the disease and deliberately sought to suppress news coverage.
Now the disease has spread all over China and across the globe killing at least 304 people in China and infecting more than 14,380 worldwide.
1
...And this is a nation that is hailed by many (especially in Europe) as the soon to be World’s #1 leading nation!!?? Policies of coercion & lack of transparency, in many aspects still a medieval social structure & widespread poverty. A nation that obviously has little control over its food chain, health infrastructure and hygienic standards. As much as the western democracies are far from perfect, it appears that China has still a long road ahead in achieving the status of “developed country”.
7
In totalitarian states and soon here, governments work in secret for fear of not saving face, when saving face is the least of the problem.
5
The Chinese should put their controlling government into good use for once and that would be by cleaning up the markets, the wild animal as delicacies trade, and instituting a massive hygiene campaign. Avian flu, SARS, Corona all started in China - that should tell you something. The fact that this does not happen in Japan or South Korea - should tell you that this is about hygiene not geography.
4
While they may now be capitalistic in their way, China is still a totalitarian state. This response to the virus is typical.
We were attracted to their cheap labor. It all came at a price. Where were all those anti-Communist Republicans when we needed them? Making a buck, I guess.
3
What? This can't be! I was assured by the WHO during their public pandering of China during their press conference that they were the most transparent ever in the history of outbreaks! Sounds like fake news, or someone who is upset how the UN's aviation organization, ICAO, got caught blocking anyone asking why is Taiwan excluded from being involved on preventing the spread of the virus. Clearly fake news since China in their entire history according to WHO wouldn't lie or downplay things since Xi personally mumbled to them they are transparent. /sarcasm
3
China is running re-education camps in Western China and putting the children of the detainees in re-education orphanages ("kindergartens").
China is so dangerous to global individual freedom and liberty it is hard to understate.
5
There is no better way to create disorder and distrust than trying to muzzle and control those whose informed views must be heard.
Are you listening, GOP?
5
Chinese authorities put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm or political embarrassment.
red china did that? oh, come now.
3
We are learning more and more about how the Wuhan Corona virus is in layman's terms causing death. The severe respiratory distress results from damage to infected lungs, which causes progressive difficulty breathing and finally the breathing stops. Chinese doctors released chest X-rays of a 33-year-old coronavirus patient that show what the illness looks like in her lungs. I am reminded of a 100 year old revealing his secret to his longevity in one word. "breathing"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-doctors-released-chest-x-012400585.html
3
Absent a mutation, this corona virus will not cause a global pandemic like the end-World War I global flu pandemic, that killed some 50,000,000 world-wide.
This virus has been known for nearly two months. If it had global pandemic capacity, by now there would be tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands sickened.
That there as been - so far - just one death outside of China suggests we've seen the worst.
Even so, when new lethal and actually or potentially sneeze-transmissible diseases arise, the immediate response should be to isolate the country, wherein the disease arises.
When a ship is holed below the waterline - by a rock or a weapon - sailors rush to close water-tight doors, to contain the flooding. That prompt action keeps the ship afloat until it can be fixed.
When ebola erupted in West Africa in 2014, the first response should have been so end all flights from the region and to limit inbound flights to those with relief supplies.
Such a flight ban would have affected only the few wealthy in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. An air traveler from Liberia - sick with ebola - arrived in Lagos (Nigeria) and collapsed in the airport. Nigerian authorities, on guard, hospitalized him (he soon died) and tracked-down all, who had had contact with him. That rapid response kept ebola from spreading in Nigeria.
The lesson: quarantines - air travel shut-downs - must be imposed at soon as possible, when a new, lethal, and easily transmissible disease emerges.
3
The west learned from its mistake when its secrecy during WW1 helped the 1918 flu pandemic spread globally killing 1% of the world's population. Spain was not in WW1 so it did not have secrecy so news reports of the illness first came out of Spain. It was termed the Spanish flu for this reason, when it really started in the middle of the US at an army barracks.
The CCP has not learned from history because it does not allow real history to be even be taught to its people. The hardworking Chinese people have been brainwashed and news is censored from them. This is one of the reasons why all the nasty sicknesses come out of China.
1
NYC Health Commissioner Barbot is acting the same way as the Chinese officials. Last week she said that Chinese people should go about their business and enjoy the Lunar New Year holiday. She said that there was no need for those recently returned from Wuhan should to voluntarily confine themselves to their home.
Even today she said on NY 1 TV that people should go out and act normally. Even Bill DeBlasio said people should take flu precautions.
Why can this bumbling so called health commissioner not tell people to wash their hands as soon as they get home, to avoid touching objects and not touch their eyes nose and mouth? What is WRONG with her? And those recently returned from China should self quarantine for 2 weeks at home.
2
Normally, you'd write off this type of shenanigan as Chinese internal affair. But pandemics obviously don't respect the border and can kill millions around world. This is just like other countries helplessly watching the US election that has far reaching consequences on every corner of the world.
It's way past time for a real world government with teeth.
2
First SARS and now Coronavirus. The dictator in Beijing learnt nothing from SARS, and many more people died, who may be alive today if prompt action had been taken. Now we see history repeating. Xi and co are natural liars, who always have to have the truth beaten out them. What we know now is that people coming from Wuhan should have been turned stopped from traveling several weeks ago.
China ought to be made to pay the billions it's lies, inaction, corruption and incompetence has cost. And as always, just another reminder that China can Never be trusted.
2
The Chinese government has mastered the art of losing face trying to save face.
3
The first case of coronavirus being spread by a person with no symptoms has been found
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-case-coronavirus-spread-person-no-symptoms-found-germany
With lessons learned from the US no doubt. As a gay man who lived through the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, it was worse in this country. Here, those afflicted with a new and horrifying disease were blamed as bringing it on themselves. Meanwhile the Religious Right claimed it was God's punishment so we shouldn't do anything about it.
President Ronald Reagan didn't even mention AIDS until 1987, after thousands had already died. His administration thought it was all a big joke.
4
Of course they covered up, hid and denied. And of course it has turned out disastrously. Cover-ups always do. Disastrously.
Are you listening, Messrs. Trump and O'Connell?
5
It doesn’t take rocket science to determine that those open air ‘markets’ of cruelty have much to do with this. Those who operate and ‘shop’ at these should be called out for what they are — barbaric and worthy of contempt. I know we all live in glass houses but these and others who find ‘entertainment’ in torturing, killing and eating wild animals should be ostracized from civilized society before their habits kill us all.
4
The Chinese were worried about being embarrassed, and therefore kept this health disaster under wraps. How terribly irresponsible. When their economy hits rock bottom they will realize they should have handled this in a more intelligent manner. It's bad enough our own administration is woefully lacking in intelligence and couldn't care less about our environment. Our future is at stake and the only hope we have is to vote this disgraceful group out of office.
2
I highly recommend Ha Fayun's "Such Is This World @SARS.come" [sic]. It is a novel set against the background of how officialdom handled the SARS virus in China. It sounds as if this is quite similar.
1
It’s rough to read the list of contributors to the article, all rather non-typical US names save maybe one, and the two perky white-ish men who claim credit for the article on the by-line. Really, you could not have let one of the folks whose country it is actually from have gotten the credit? “The New Sad Times We Are In.”
There is no excuse for China's dictatorship to withhokd vital health information. All to try to avoid political embarrasment? Pleeease! Ignorance gives rise to arrogance, a highly combustible mix when the science of it is trampled upon. Shouldn't we, humans, learn from our mistakes? This whole catastrophe sounds so Trumpian it's scary, as the evidence seems just an afterthought. What next, double down in denying Climate Change, another crisis already biting our behinds?
2
Let me guess. President Xi is claiming executive privilege.
3
Remember when our government resisted grounding the Boeing 737 Max?
2
Lies, lies, and more lies. Iran lied about the plane crash. Trump lied about zero injury after middle strike. Wuhan officials lied about Coronavirus. When will they learn that the more they lie, the more they will have to cover up for the lies they told.
2
great to see that you CAN still do real journalism! nice work!
2
Difficult to see why this paper or any country takes China seriously. Their public pronouncements, assurances, and statements of fact are just noise that affirms that the Chinese Communist Party is still in power — for now.
2
Trump has a known disdain for science and scientists.
He also is a well-known and long-term germaphobe.
Let's hope he just keeps his mouth shut (no Hurricane Dorian strut, please) and listens (or, in his case, looks at pictures).
4
Well written Pamela L and I could NOT have articulated it any better. We are at a crossroad in history and my fear is it will get progressively worse before we can do anything about it. Power corrupts but more importantly absolute power corrupts ABSOLUTELY! Excaerbating this is the fact China will continue their bad ways even after we get a handle on this Coronavirus. They've had ample opportunities to fix their bad ways (SARS, MERS, and now this Coronavirus. I won't even go into the fact they really don't care anything about any of their citizens. Time and time again they have validated this fact....toys painted with lead based paints, melamine tainted plastics in baby formula, foul smelling plasterboard reeking of sulfur after being install and sold by Lowes, and HD, largest illegal exporter of fentanyl, counterfeit "everything", currency manipulators, I could go on and on for hours. The top echelon are determined to enjoy their fine wines, Corvoisier, aged cuts of beef all at the expensive of their indigent citizens
2
You live long enough you see patterns in history emerge.
2
This article sounds just like how Mitch McConnell and the republicans handle everything Just read the NOAA/ hurricane article if you don’t believe me.
2
Our thoughts, goodwill and attention are focused squarely on the people of China. The unfolding isolation of the Chinese people is just as sad as it is unprecedented. The psychological impact of this type of isolation couldn’t be overstated. There is no denying that the eradication of this virus ought to be the top priority of governments around the world; this is no longer an internal issue for China.
At some point, attention to the definition of sovereignty must be drawn. Sovereign states, like China, have the right to conduct their internal affairs. But that right is contingent upon fulfillment of basic obligations not only to its people but also to the international community. Perhaps, receivership?
3
Indeed, China doesn’t seem have learned from the 2002 lesson, and it comes as no surprise that history is repeating itself.
To maintain its iron grip on the country, the Chinese Communist Party must convince the public that everything is under control. It goes to great lengths to carry out systemic cover-ups of failures and deficiencies that could cause a scandal.
Chinese censors have worked diligently to remove any coverage of the outbreak, and police have harassed people for spreading "rumuors" about the disease.
While seeking to protect the leadership’s image, the authorities have failed to contain the virus. The mishandling of the crisis will take a toll on China's economy and global standing.
2
Good Story.
#1. It would be nice to have this story in InfoGraphic.
#2. If you DO a Bar Charts of Single-Day Daily Deaths and New Cases, we can see the Infectious Trends at glance. it's getting Worse or Diminishing.
2
The countries of southeast asia like indonesia, cambodia, thailand, laos, myanmar and vietnam do not have testing materials or adequate health infrastructure, don't want to "offend" china, and possibly are refusing to acknowledge cases.... they could be epicenters of huge outbreaks of corona virus in a couple of weeks after a few doubling times.
1
Deja vu all over again. The central government's response to this disaster is so similar to that of the Kremlin's response to Chernobyl that it is beyond belief. Perhaps some day governments will realize and accept that illnesses and nuclear fallout don't follow orders nor respect national borders.
2
Lessons should and need to be learned from this epidemic.
Will Republican conservative elite realize that its insistence upon withholding information
is a dagger pointed at the heart of the country?
Will our population demand and get Republicans collaborating with Trump to obstruct the flow of information to abide by the US Constitution?
Will the GOP play the nationalist card hat criticisms are just expressions of an anti-Trump attitude and un-American?
Will Republicans continue to assert defiance of the US Constitution for the purpose of reelection is in the national interest?
4
I would like to publicly thank the CDC & WHO. These two agencies have employees who work endless hours, often in dire circumstances (for those who go into the field in epidemics and work with dangerous pathogens) and do so often without basic thanks.
They are truly in that proverbial position between a rock and a hard place. When they give us warnings, protocols and recommendations they are hounded for "daring" to "inconvenience us" or accused of being hysterics. Just go back and read posts during the SARS outbreak and the Ebola one.
You would think that we might be grateful that we were spared worse outcomes and spared them expressly because these organizations and doctors and nurses on the ground took control of the situation, many of them giving their own lives. Instead, I read hundreds of posts about "the deep state," the "outrage" of having to be checked for symptoms at airports, the "outrageous costs" of having workers stay home for three days, etc. And then the smug chortling, "We told you it was no big deal!" It seems lost on these geniuses that it was no big deal...because of the precautions taken. And it was a big deal to those who died.
You can bet your house that those who grouse about being inconvenienced or claiming it was a hoax (thanks, Alex Jones) would be the ones screaming bloody murder if the CDC or WHO failed to take appropriate action.
I am so very grateful for the men and women who devote their lives to preventing catastrophes. They are heroes.
7
One thing that is scary about this virus more than the killer flu is that we don’t see the tens or hundreds of thousands of flu victims dropping dead in their tracks. The pictures of people collapsed in the streets are terrifying. Could not even make it in the hospital doors, after being well enough to leave the house?
2
When the Anglo-centric H1N1 (swine flu) was all of the rage, I don't recall quite this level of ethnocentric targeting. It seems that the USA prefers to "other" diseases that don't start within its borders, but refuses to accept blame or responsibility for any such disease that actually evolves within the 48 contiguous states.
To panicked people: it's NOT the second coming of the Black Death.
A plague outbreak began with a few deaths in January or February, then a few deaths a most weeks in March & April, building to a dozen or so a week by the start of mid-May.
Ten percent to a third who got it died.
As summer came on, deaths grew from a dozen a week to two then three score a week by the first week in June, then basically doubled every week, some weeks even tripling, until by mid July until deaths peaked and 5,000 /week for several weeks running, until it receded.
1
But our government eliminates the department we created to defend our country from virus outbreaks of this kind, and defunds the agencies who SHOULD be in position to protect us.
Is there much difference between us and China now?
4
This is not just a problem of secrecy or a culture of sweeping problems under the rug. This also an urgent broader issue of the practice of eating wild animals (and animals in general), and the belief in quack medicine which has also caused near extinction of several animal species.
1
Just one of many disturbing glimpses of what we can expect if an authoritarian/totalitarian China becomes the first worldwide hegemon, and doubly so given the precarious state of democracy in the United States and elsewhere.
3
Globalization is making a uniquely Chinese epidemic a worldwide disaster, one which has been predicted in the scientific community for years. Not to mention, on top of the Wuhan virus, there is now an avian virus outbreak in both China and Hong Kong which is just a short step away from human transmission. For many, it will be the economic effects that will produce the worst horrors as recession and even depression loom large.
When we’re all connected, we’re all effected. Small consolation for those of us who warned of the potential disasters and for those who never benefited from the system which now brings disease to your doorstep.
2
After reading your fine article, I suspect it would be prudent to test serum for Corona from recent deaths due to FLI (flu like illness). Interesting to note spike in FLI reported by CDC this past week.
3
Can’t wait to visit. These epidemics have been predicted. More to follow.
1
I just read a times article about people dying because pharmacies make mistakes in prescriptions. The large pharmacy chains can silence people with a settlement and nondisclosure agreements. Lawyers and reps of the corps are on the regulatory boards. The corporations have ways to reward phArmacists who go along and punish those who don’t. BTW: Don’t blame president Xi. This is in the US.
3
The authors talk about a period of seven weeks of secrecy and bad decisions. From "early December". Well, I can count, and that brings us to, well, today. With 100,000,000 people on lock-down and the world fully informed for the entire month of January, how can the authors make that claim?
The Chinese system did not respond well. Not at first. But imagine if this virus had leapt from possum to person in West Virginia and the first victims had sought help, only to be turned away because of lack of insurance. Would the judgement on "the government" be so harsh?
4
"Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response"
'The United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic.'
"President Donald Trump cut $15 billion in national health spending and cutting the global disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. And the government’s $30 million Complex Crises Fund was eliminated.
"In 2017 and 2018, the philanthropist billionaire Bill Gates met repeatedly with Bolton and his predecessor, H.R. McMaster, warning that ongoing cuts to the global health disease infrastructure would render the United States vulnerable to, as he put it, the “significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes.”
"And an independent, bipartisan panel formed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that lack of preparedness was so acute in the Trump administration that the “United States must either pay now and gain protection and security or wait for the next epidemic and pay a much greater price in human and economic costs.”
5
A virus knows nothing of politics, morality, or blame. It just wants to replicate itself by finding a new host.
2
I see here an intentional and perhaps unavoidable critic about China. China as a country is 1.3 billion population giant. I'd just like to imagine the chaos in the airports in U.S. having the same virus outburst.
1
Another thought... How exactly would we have dealt with an outbreak here? Would millions of people in our cities be willing to accept curfews, lock downs, breakdown of public transportation and mandatory quarantines? Just like that, no questions asked, no lawsuits or lawyers or mention of human rights... Would it really be so easy and fast to declare marshal law? I wonder...
3
The truth matters.
Cynically putting politics ahead of truth is so often destructive. I will pray for the people of China, and mourn that our own government is currently also putting politics ahead of truth. The greatest freedom in the world is the ability to be truthful.
3
Take your temperature twice a day and call your doctor if you become ill. “If you do not have any symptoms, you can continue with your daily activities, such as going to work, school, or other public areas.”
These are the CDC’s “prevention steps” for “close contacts” - caregivers and other household members who do NOT follow the recommended safety guidelines when in close contact with an individual who has confirmed nCoV and is being “isolated” at home.
This is contrary to the recommendations from the World Health Organization, which recognizes the need for home isolation but only in cases where the people in close contact with an infected person take appropriate precautions.
I’m not confident that the US approach to containment will be any more successful than that of China.
2
It's frankly irresponsible that media outlets have published the photo of the man who collapsed and died in wuhan and implied that he died from the coronavirus. This is just going to spread irrational panic.
From all accounts I have heard, coronavirus doesn't cause people who otherwise appear healthy to suddenly collapse and die on the street. They typically experience serious symptoms - serious enough that they wouldn tbe out strolling the streets.
2
Secrecy and lack of openness in our governments is what is going to ruin our civilizations no matter what country we live in. It is apparent in all the news that we read, both here and abroad. Politicians are literally killing us by the hiding facts that could save our lives.
In New York alone there are markets similar to those in Wuhan that the city is well aware of that are filthy and import fish and meats from China and the Philippines. The city does not do anything to monitor these markets. They issue summons. They are paid, and business as usual resumes. They hose down the streets into our sewers. The rat problem is horrendous, and again, the city does not do anything.
We are always warned of the farming habits from these countries. Many of us will not buy food that has been farmed from those countries, but many do. They are broadcast on social media. Fake news? Who knows? But who needs to take the chance. Many have, and it could be like playing Russian Roulette.
The government, whether it be federal, state or city is obliged to step in, tell its denizens what is going on, be transparent, make sure that we are safe from the beginning by cleaning up the markets to start, importing only safe food, or close down those markets that won’t comply. Otherwise, many believe, it only a matter of time before these diseases hit us full scale.
1
What is the demographic of the people with the highest mortality rates?
Please put this in perspective of this fact for a typical flu season in the US:
“The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documented that seasonal influenza was responsible for 34,400-57,300 deaths during the 2018-2019 season.[1] Mortality is highest in infants and elderly persons.”
1
In the age of trump, the US is becoming China in its pursuit of concealment and deception.
Item: trump's marker-pen misrepresentation of the path of hurricane Dorian
Item: the official line that no Americans were hurt in the Iranian missile raid
Item: the continued suppression of climate change discussion and research in government agencies
And, of course, the WH suppression or distortion of trump's relationships with Russia and Ukraine.
12:25 EST, 2/02
4
How is this bureaucratic incompetence and manipulation of reality different from the Titan missile disaster in '80, the failure of NORAD on 911, the failure at Chernobyl?
International agencies need to bond and impose international law and protocols. Enough hiding potential planetary disaster, enough of public executions by oligarchs that go unanswered. Enough toxic war. Time to save the Earth.
I realize nothing like this will happen until it is officially too late. Just saying. If only humans would stop reacting against the reason of the Enlightenment. If only the Endarkenment would end. If only.
4
And sadly, I can see the same thing happen here in America.
After we instigated an ill-conceived plan to assassinate an Iranian general and they retaliated by bombing an air base where American soldiers were present, they initially reported there were NO American injuries.
Weeks later we learned that in fact 34 US soldiers now have traumatic brain injuries.
Trump and his minions in congress have allowed America to become akin to communist countries where they control the message (their followers have been brainwashed that any news not coming from state news/fox is 'fake'), and hide/gloss over any news events that cast the administration in a bad light.
In other words, we are no better than communist China.
4
Don't you think a photo of a dead person on a street surrounded by hazmat suits is fear-mongering? Especially if you don't how the man died exactly? It's also kind of disrespectful of the man and his family.
5
Is is possible that the current President and his administration would also try to keep the American public in the dark about health issues?
Asking for a friend....
3
Nothing to see here! Move along! Keep quiet!
Think I'll sit down and reread Stephen King's "The Stand," in the first part of which a highly contagious disease spreads around the world.
So what? The Trump administration is silencing scientists on climate change--the pot is learning from the kettle--or is it the other way around?
4
Before we all get high and mighty about China's political 'solution' to unpleasant realities, we should remember our own. When mad cow disease showed up in one cow here in Alberta and made international headlines, the then conservative premier, Ralph Klein, suggested the best course of action should have been, as in days of yore, "shoot, shovel, and shut up". Instead those involved decided to man up, admit the truth of that case and others that followed. We lost billions in the ensuing global bans of our beef.
Meanwhile our neighbors to the south, vehemently and self righteously denied they had a similar problem. The beef lobby in the States ensured that not only would the profits from the industry continue, they would skyrocket because the vaunted Alberta beef was off the market.
But here's where it all changed. Alberta, through painstaking diligence has a clean slate. Every single calf that is born is tagged, its genetic background recorded. Tests are open and transparent. Our beef is again among the best in the world.
I am sure the Americans are compliant now, but back in the day, they quietly followed the Ralph Klein SSS protocol and never did admit anything.
You now have a president and a party who will do anything to keep itself in power, outrageously claiming that to be in the public's best interest. That's the state of it.
4
You can guarantee that our newly appointed emperor wishes he could silence our doctors , newspapers, and all of his critics and will work hard to make sure that happens in his next three terms
3
The Chinese Government is acting just like Trump and the Republicans. Lie, conceal, obfuscate, deny...
3
Well ordering official silence is something that
# 46 might very rely upon.
He might tweet Beijing to suggest that they should exercise ‘executive privilege’. No news is good news, according to Stephen Miller
What a stroke of genius.
Boy-o-boy he is smarter than the doctors at WHO.
By the way, he asks Jared, what is the WHO?
2
This is what happens in a totalitarian society, where the needs of the Party precedes needs of the people. Millions died in China from Mao's idiotic plan, Great Leap Forward. It is ironic call China (or North Korea and their weak emulators) "Peoples' Republic." We often fear the growing economic and military might of China, but its vulnerability rests with the fact that a small group of (mostly) men make decisions for an entire nation of over a billion. China is the ultimate paper tiger.
1
luckily there are decision makers in usa ... look in Xi Jinping china
1
Another Chernobyl.
1
In hindsight is looks like a serious mistake, but perhaps at the time the Chinese government was, at least in part, trying to stop a panic.
The US did a similar cover up concerning the dangerous air quality post 9/11. It seems the powers that be consider economic disruption a priority over public health when the economic disruption is large. When public health does not result in major economic disruption between countries as in Zika, public health becomes an economic generator.
10
Lessons should and need to be learned from this
epidemic. But will China's political elite realize that
its insistence upon top down control of information
is a dagger pointed at the heart of the country? Will
its population demand and get changes in how
authorities manage the flow of information? Will they play the nationalist card that foreign criticisms are just expressions of an anti China attitude?
Whatever happens, the people of China who have to put up
with life in a totalitarian society where all information must
be state origin in nature will continue to suffer from the bad consequences of this deeply anchored mindset of its
political elites.
9
Did Mitch consult with the Chinese?
17
The reality might be more complicated. Novel viruses could be a common occurrence in China, and with rare exception dissipate without the need for crisis measures. And if China was to treat each such occurrence as a crisis, they would find themselves in an untenable, constant state of emergency. From their standpoint it might well be preferable to risk an occasional breakout.
7
@smartypants I agree. While I certainly think it is important to advocate for more freedom of speech in china, the time between when the cluster of atypical pneumonia was recognized and when the virus was isolated/sequenced/shared does not seem consistent with a great deal of information suppression. The article seems to have unrealistic expectations about fast we can expect countries to ramp up and sound the alarm about suspected "spillover" events. Again, I have great sympathy for the citizens of China wanting more information. But I am also really impressed by the Chinese virology community who have been working to control this. And the Chinese government at least deserves some kind of acknowledgement in giving these virologists support.
9
@smartypants @medicalstudent I see your points that novel virus outbreaks could be common in China and that this article may have unrealistic expectations.
However, Chinese leaders did actively silence and intimidate members of the virology community who tried to communicate with each other about the virus. And they did this in a way that prioritized political convenience over the well-being of their citizens.
On 12/30/19, after Dr. Li had communicated with other medical students via a private online chat, the article says:
“In the middle of the night, officials from the health authority in the central city of Wuhan summoned Dr. Li, demanding to know why he had shared the information. Three days later, the police compelled him to sign a statement that his warning constituted ‘illegal behavior.’”
....
“On the last day of 2019, after Dr. Li’s message was shared outside the group, the authorities focused on controlling the narrative. The police announced that they were investigating eight people for spreading rumors about the outbreak”
....
“Their reluctance to go public, in part, played to political motivations as local officials prepared for their annual congresses in January. Even as cases climbed, officials declared repeatedly that there had likely been no more infections.”
What the article does not explicitly say, but implies, is that this is consistent with the way the government has behaved in the past and with alarming frequency. That is a major problem.
1
China manages its economy on the cheap for the benefit of the wealthy.
On the ongoing plague of Coronavirus, as will as the previous plagues of SAARS, etc., all of which originated in China, China’s unregulated livestock industry is a cesspool of dangerous viruses and bacteria. There are many reports of the outbreak of virus among animals, most recently pigs, in China which forces the culling of large herds of animals. This is why the West has a prohibition for the import of any animals, fowl, etc. The science of the transfer of virus from animals to humans has been proved.
20
US response now worries me more than what China may or may not have done.
How is it possible that a Boston student flying in from Wuhan got into the country? And where is that person isolated? Not reporting that is incomplete reporting.
Was that before the alerts went out or is Boston just failing to monitor Logan?
Boston hosts thousands and thousands of students and it's a medical mecca that attracts consumers from all over the world.
I had plans to spend a day there next week for a crowded event and now I've cancelled; I'm no alarmist but my continued good health is important.
23
@HotGumption
I totally agree. What I care more now is what we should be doing in US. Having an article on front page of NYT criticizing Chinese Government is weird. Not that I think they are not to be blamed just don't think it's the right time to point fingers.
1
The problem is not that he got into the country, but that he was not isolated because there were no procedures on place to monitor those coming from China.
2
Excellent questions. According to local Boston news this morning, that student is under a home quarantine for 14 days. He’s a student at Umass Boston, do does that mean home is a dorm? Not necessarily, but, it’s certainly a risky possibility.
2
I can’t help but wonder about how our country would handle this today if it started here. Where politics over truth and accountability has disappeared where science is silenced over business and money
38
I’d wonder how our unaffordable healthcare system might impact the behaviors of the first people impacted by such a virus. Prohibitively high healthcare costs could certainly lead to widespread underreporting here, even without the government trying to silence anyone who sounded an alarm.
4
Sharing patient information with anyone not directly involved in that patient's care or to be involved in that patient's care is also illegal in the USA and in France. It is considered private. In the USA more so to the patient and patient's family since the leakage of any health crisis can sudden have the patient abandoned by their insurance company and fired.
There has never been any pandemic that has not began with multiple people dying first. At no time ever, has one patient with some unknown disease been the RED FLAG of the start of the contagion until after the pandemic is over and is history. Only hindsight is 20/20.
If you don't want any more pandemics then be immunized. Buy multiple of gloves and wear them all of the time, only taking them off to launder them. Always remove your shoes at the entry of the house and have a specific place to set them. Before the discovery of antibiotics this was the way people lived because it could save their own lives. There is a reason most churches want babies christian asap, but once a member always a member and even a century ago the first year of life was a child's most dangerous year.
I will call out fake news when I see it. But here I am calling sensationalist journalism. It is always better to stop a campfire from becoming a forest fire, but not all campfires lead to forest fires. Neither do all cold/flu like symptoms lead to pandemics.
9
@Susannah Allanic You're correct that pandemic diseases quickly claim hundreds or thousands of victims. The death rate growth rate from this new corona virus has started to decline. So far, that has been only one death outside of China (in the Philippines).
Absent a mutation, this new corona virus will not give rise to a global pandemic akin to the end-World War I global flu pandemic, that killed some 50,000,000 world-wide. That pandemic was caused by a bird flu virus (Type H1N1).
As to protective measures, you're in error. First, antibiotics are not effective against viruses, although antibiotics may prevent onset of diseases that can gain a foothold, because of damage done by viruses.
Second, vaccines against influenza work, but a virus mutation can - and usually does - make one year's vaccine ineffective against a mutated virus.
Third, the only protective gear that works reliably against viruses or bacteria is a full-body hazmat suit with a sealed-system respirator or a respirator with a HEPA-rated filter. Such a suit and respirator are only effective if the suited wearer is decontaminated when entering a sterile zone.
Laundry bleach (usually 6% sodium hypochlorite) diluted to 50% bottle strength with water, is a good decontaminant. Ultraviolet light weakens or kills most viruses.
2
While the Trump administration is barring citizens of more and more foreign countries from entering our borders due to concerns for 'safety' of the U.S. citizens, flights from China continue to arrive at U.S airports? Why in the world are we still allowing flights from China with the potential to shower our citizens with a dangerous virus?!
Senseless.
17
All this finger pointing does no good, there is too much finger pointing theses days and too little being fine to solve problems. Let every country pull their resources, both economic and intellectual, to fight the problem now that it’s here, . And more money for science and scientists and less money on vanity projects like walls on the Mexican border. It’s times like this when you wake up and see what’s really important.
8
I think this will prove to be like Chernobyl in Russia: not the end, but the beginning of the end
6
@Michael Livingston’s
Two totally different problems. Two totally different countries.
1
I was relieved to get to the end of this article and NOT read that Dr Li had died. Sir, I wish you a speedy recovery and health to your family.
26
I think the Chinese police in China did the right thing charging people with "rumor spreading".
Just think, if the people in China, including the Western media, stop spreading "rumors" there will be no coverage worldwide on the coronavirus. Then there is no outbreak and everyone can go about doing their business happily thereafter.
Putin's Trump would probably say about the current coverage: it is fake news, an American hoax to revenge the Chinese hoax of climate change.
Good thing President Xi stepped in the time he did. It shows his foresight, honesty, and leadership and he deserves to be where he is.
2
If those same low-level officials hadn't censored and hadn't downplayed and hadn't covered everything up they would have been put against the wall by the officials one rung up - or even Beijing itself.
You see, that's the problem with Fascists and the like: always someone other than the "big boss" has to take the blame. It's called the "Leader Principle", and we Germans know it well. It is troubling to see that the U.S. is moving in that direction too.
22
How is the US Government any different given that the Republican Senators just silenced witnesses against Trump? Indeed we are probably worse since the Chinese government has at least never pretended to support transparency. Thankfully, at least for now, we still have a strong press to illuminate abuse and deception. Thank You New York Times!
24
Power trumps the lives of "the little people". They can die by the hundreds or thousands, if it will hurt the powerful to stop it.
Xi, and all the officials under him, put power and fear of losing ahead of lives.
We see it here, now, and in every dictatorship as well. Their power is more important than any "little person's" life.
"The death of millions is a statistic" --Stalin.
11
A pandemic will happen in the USA too...it’s just a matter of time.
Our current anti science, anti environmental regulation, pro greed government will ensure that.
14
@Anne Not so!!! Pandemics arise for reasons that have nothing to do with regulations. Most pandemics arise from virus mutations. Those are random.
That said, virus mutations can be facilitated - or prevented - by things, that can be regulated. Eating wild animals - especially if the raw meat is not handled carefully and if the meat is not cooked thoroughly - raises pandemic risk.
Many animals tolerate viruses and are not sickened. Some of those viruses, if ingested by humans, can do a lot of damage.
Many rail against factory farming. But when poultry and pigs are raised separately - and kept indoors - that reduces the risk that an animal disease adapts to humans.
An example: pigs can host human and bird flu viruses. Flu viruses readily trade DNA. So, having pigs, poultry and persons proximate raises such mutation risk.
China's farms now resemble those of the U.S. a century ago: pigs, poultry and people mingle freely in farmyards. That's a bad thing.
Many migratory wild ducks and geese host flu viruses and disperse them in their droppings. So, healthy ducks in a farm yard in China can contract bird flu from droppings of over-flying wild birds.
In American-style industrial piggeries, no poultry is found and workers decontaminate their boots before entering the building. That limits risk of introducing pathogens. That saves pigs' lives and pig farmers' profits. Biosecurity also limits risk of a pathogen mutation, that endangers humans.
Why am I not surprised. I can't think of a time when China has been in front of a disaster. It's always the same story. And now the rest of the world has to deal with their bad behavior...again.
10
What I find equally outrageous and dangerous is how the World Health Organization, which many countries are relying on for their own coronavirus respone, is applauding China, writing in their latest statement:
"The (W.H.O.)Committee welcomed the leadership and political commitment of the very highest levels of Chinese government, their commitment to transparency, and the efforts made to investigate and contain the current outbreak."
Instead, the W.H.O. should be reprimanding China for the incalculable damage they recklessly and selfishly unleashed on the world through their LACK of transparency and lies!
7
Two major news stories
China Silenced Doctors and
Focused on Secrecy as Coronavirus Spread
Senate Republicans Silenced Witnesses and
Focused on Secrecy as More News of
Trump’s Wrongdoings Spread
Both are very serious problems
Hope we find the answer to both very soon.
33
This is similar to the segment in the old movie “Dr. Zhivago” where the doctor was told a typhoid outbreak he was treating was something else because typhoid didn’t exist in Soviet lands.
8
Gee this reminds me of Enron, the Lehmann Brothers, and the latest fraud, Boeing. All, along with our Chinese friends have something in common: tyrannical "tell me what I want to hear management." Yep, you make a problem go away by vehemently denying its very existence. That works fabulously right up until the very moment the buzzing fan spectacularly makes its unwelcome reply. Then, the rats beat a hasty trail for the exits. Watch 'em scurry. Watch disaster ensue.
10
Politics and ideology aside, countries like china, russia or iran, can never be trusted at the drivers seat.
5
In strict-obedience-to-authority countries this stuff happens — while in democratic countries, businesses do the hiding of crucial information: Think Boeing, Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, etc. etc.
10
Our joke of a leader here in the USA would want to save face and not react long before China's. We're such a messed up country. It's not Trump, it's the people that support him.
8
This is what happens in dictatorships. If the disease is as lethal and communicable as some fear (unproven), lots of people will die because the Communist Party suppressed information.
2
Through Twitter I learned about the concept of Heavenly Mandate. It explains a lot about the Chinese attitude.
I expect this sort of duplicity from the Chinese government. Sadly I also expect it of our present administration, which admires the Chinese form of government so much. Birds of a feather.
9
It's ironic that we pick so many fights with the Chinese. They repeatedly do the very same things Trump and the Republicans do: state lies, suppress facts, and blame others.
11
sounds like what the Russians did with Chernobyl. That's what you get with authoritarian regimes republican voters. We are not there yet but we will be if you again vote for un-democracy - the suppression and denial of truth for political purposes. Sound familiar?
6
The Trump supporters here have apparently never heard of the word "analogy". NO ONE has accused Trump of contributing to this outbreak or making THIS SPECIFIC contatgion, worse.
3
I have a close friend who is a doctor in Beijing.
He recently wrote me that doctors in China are under siege.
More and more doctors are being assaulted by angry patients and their relatives for perceived issues in care. In the USA we sue our doctors. In China they beat them up or in some cases kill them.
He said that the system there is broken with too few doctors to care for too many patients. The government is only interested in preserving its own power and not in supporting those serving the patients.
There is no cure for this virus whether in China or here. The pandemic is just beginning. Many people will die before it is over.
Governments put their own survival over the needs of their people. Cambodia's ruler just announced that he doesn't want to threaten the economy by restricting tourists and business people from China. He would rather they die than that he and his cronies lose money.
China is even worse.
The Chinese Communist Party has long ruled with an iron hand thinking only of its own survival.
I hope that this virus kills it along with the poor people it takes away.
10
Trying looking at things from the other side's perspective. You have a disease which is initially misdiagnosed as pneumonia. A disease which itself is commonly misdiagnosed as the flu before discovering the patient actually has pneumonia. You then discover the disease is unique. You find the outbreak is currently localized to a specific market. Or so you think, seeing as the initial outbreak was very easy to misidentify.
Medical experts incorrectly assume, based on the limited information, the disease is not human transmissible. Everything looks confined to one market. However, that mistake is easy because the disease has a two week gestation period. Add to that late diagnosis. You could easily go a month before realizing what is really going on. Is it any surprise public officials weren't rushing to intervene when even doctors were getting things wrong?
I don't think this is China's fault. Politicians spin things positively when convenient. That's what they do. Airports were shutting down services of their own volition. Trump was still telling everyone things are hunky dory. Meanwhile, Mexicans are still murders and rapists. Expanding the Muslim ban is somehow beneficial to public health.
What do you think is the greatest threat to American lives? The emergency the President is exaggerating or the emergency the President is down playing. I wonder...
6
Easy to criticize and yes it's deserved for China.
But in America, we have people who ACTUALLY think vaccines are a hoax and don't get their kids vaccinated. Americans born here and Somalian refugees in Minnesota (Ilhan Omar's state) had a measles outbreak not long ago, remember?
As for China, I've heard from Wuhan medical staff that it's actually more than 1000 dead already. Mom's thyroid doctor has classmates working in Wuhan hospitals. They said the government came and said it was nothing at first, then left. Then it got bigger and government took it more seriously. It's actually been happening since early December or even earlier. But the government didn't want bad news they said, because mian zi.
In China and Chinese people I've noticed no one wants to be the person who delivers bad news. So they put it off and pretend it's not there. Then this happens. I've noticed this in some of my Chinese colleagues. Us Americans always raise the alarm, sometimes too much and overexaggerate or amplify a situation that isn't serious. But that could be why we don't have these outbreaks like China has.
6
It's a replay of Chernobyl. Another authoritarian regime led by fools who think they can cover up a disaster that involves thousands of people. Guess what? People talk. And the secrecy magnifies the tragedy, increasing the suffering.
4
The article below is just one which mentions the pulmonary receptor molecule for corona virus is an angiotensin converting enzyme 2. The ACE2 is in higher concentration in ethnic Chinese lungs than it is in Caucasians. I think this will be a disaster for China, but may be less severe for western nations.
Receptor recognition by novel coronavirus from Wuhan: An analysis based on decade-long structural studies of SARS Yushun Wan, Jian Shang, Rachel Graham, Ralph S. Baric, Fang Li DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00127-20
3
Oxiris Barbot is out of her league in confronting this crisis.
Mayor DeBlasio needs to either remove her or appoint someone separate to deal with this outbreak.
She has failed to warn the public about not touching objects and touching their nose mouth or eyes. This is so simple. She has also discouraged those recently returned from Wuhan from self quarantining themselves. She encouraged them to go out and about and enjoy the Lunar New Year festivities.
She has also not ordered the reagents to test for the virus here. Instead we wait a week or so for results from the CDC. This is unacceptable.
7
In the middle of the night, officials from the health authority in the central city of Wuhan summoned Dr. Li, demanding to know why he had shared the information. Three days later, the police compelled him to sign a statement that his warning constituted “illegal behavior.”
Sounds like the US administration and DOJ.
4
Yes China is bad and this countries who knuckle under against the best interests of their own people BUT how different is this than the Trump administration banning the use of certain terms relating to climate change or the decision of the Republican Party to marginalize and demonize science and scientists.
Let’s not crow. China is us!
4
@Justice Holmes The difference is this. A Chinese resident, who defies a government directive, ends up in prison, or worse.
An American, who disregards the Administration's guidance as to language may be demoted or fired.
China is NOT us! Anyone, who thinks so, cannot grasp the difference between mass murderers and those, who are law-abiding.
Why does poor Dr Li appear to be wearing both a mask and a nasal cannula O2 set? Why would you need BOTH? Can't say I've ever seen that done before.
Could Wuhan no longer have sufficient ICU facilities? Any respiratory physicians on here like to opine?
3
Why are we not discussing the first American death from the corona virus? The Peruvian newspaper, El Comercio, is reporting a Peruvian woman living in California, died from the virus January 17. This death would have been the first death from this virus that occurred outside of China.
3
There’s nothing “old” about China’s response.
They haven’t changed one bit.
5
Whether it is a government in China, or the USA, all governments hide important information. For example above we see that China hid the extent of the corona-virus outbreak. Likewise in the United States the Trump administration continues to coverup emails and witnesses that reveal the extent of 2020 election corruption.
10
An unnamed Shanghai woman passed the virus to business colleagues in Germany before she showed signs of the illness, doctors report January 30 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The woman had attended a business meeting at the headquarters of the auto supplier Webasto in Stockdorf on January 20 and flew back to China on January 22.
She became ill with mild symptoms on the flight back to China and tested positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, one of her German colleagues fell ill on January 24 with a fever, sore throat, chills and muscle aches.
His illness was brief, and he returned to work on January 27, the same day that the woman informed the company she carried the virus.
Nasal swabs and sputum, or phlegm, samples from the man contained high levels of the novel coronavirus even though his symptoms had passed.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-case-coronavirus-spread-person-no-symptoms-found-germany
4
@Mary Elizabeth Lease
It would be nice if someone would publish accounts of the mild cases. I don’t think the Germans even bothered going to the doctor until they got word from China about possible exposure. The symptoms lasted three days at most.
It might do a lot to quell the easily activated death anxiety we are seeing now.
2
If this had happened in the US, I would expect the same from the Trump administration.
5
Seriously. Who thought engaging with a country so steep in secrecy was a good idea? Oh, yeah, Richard Mulhous Nixon - i.e. Trump, Sr.
This will not end well.
China makes our computers. We depend, no “rely,” on computers. At some point we will all be as vulnerable as Dr. Li.
3
The Chinese propaganda machine likes to blur American criticism of its authoritarian government by pointing out the shortcomings of the United States. They do this without allowing their own citizens to take the same critical approach to their government’s shortcomings. Hiding the truth to save face is an important component of keeping the Chinese population in subjugation to the Communist Party. Its initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak is just another example of China’s tendency to do this. Clearly American democracy has its problems: a liar, bully, dictator, science-basher, and abuser of women as president (who wasn’t even elected by the majority of Americans). A sycophantic and cowardly Republican Party that condones this behavior to ensure reelection; a history of slavery and racial prejudice; an obsession with guns and gun violence. But the difference between China and the U.S. (for all you China propagandists out there) is that Americans can publicly point out the shortcomings of the American government (as I am doing right now) while your average person in China is scared to death to publicly insult China’s president Xi Jinping or the Communist Party. While the American system at least makes an effort to get at the truth, the Communist Party in China generally tries to hide it.
4
the total number of confirmed cases & death cases must be under-reported
2
As crucially important and grave as is this story, one could easily substitute "Trump," "Congress," "US Government," and other key words that would correlate to the virus spread (and then stymied) by Trump & Co pertaining to Ukraine. As now the impeachment... poof, will just go away in this coming week.
Sadly, the US is now tasting (but ignoring) a large spoonful of full-on authoritarianism, just like China.
4
“Stressing politics is always No. 1,” the governor of Hubei, Wang Xiaodong, told officials on Jan. 17, citing Mr. Xi’s precepts of top-down obedience. “Political issues are at any time the most fundamental major issues.”
Sounds like the United States of America these days
3
This is how a pandemic starts.
With knowledge kept secret. And government’s happy to get rid of the weakest links in their societies and then some.
Remember history and all the previous “eugenics like” responses to other eras of poor and disabled dying from smallpox along with native populations.
I was waiting for this shoe to drop under a world of dictators.
4
Once again, the Chinese government's attempt at "face saving " backfires. Would it ever be possible for said government to put not only it's own people, but the rest of the planet first?
This is not a bad chronology but once more it falls into the "monolithic" Chinese government fallacy. This was first and foremost a failure of the local Wuhan authorities not as the headline blares the central government or "China's". This sort of conflation of local government and central government failings is equivalent to saying Chicago's problems during the Capone era were caused by Washington as opposed to a corrupt local government. It is important to get the analysis right if you want to contribute to solving the problem as opposed to scoring "systems competition" geopolitical points which so much of NYT coverage of this disease seems to be geared for.
1
What you said is mostly true, but this is more than simply corrupt local governments — the top-down authoritarian control further encourages and enables it. The local governments are only answering to central governments, not the welfare of the people, esp. the local populace.
2
The current administration is not much better than China
Trump has silenced scientists, manipulated climate science findings, and scrubbed government websites of climate related information.
Trump attacks legitimate journalism and praises propaganda and conspiracy theories
And, it’s only going to get worse if trump somehow gets re-elected in November
7
You mean rulers choose secrecy rather than risk public embarrassment? Who would’a thunk?
4
Hopefully, saving lives will one day be more important than saving face
1
Let’s hit the pause on imports from China and all flights to and fro. Pandemics are serious business
2
This behavior is what countrys without a free press do. It’s really no surprise.
2
Xi's failure of honesty, was and is his personal responsibility to his inform his country, China, and to the rest of the world, of the coronavirus. If he is a true leader, he should accept responsibility for his failure to properly react to this plague which started in China.
2
I was wondering if it is known if the virus can be carried on all the products that we import from China, and if the answer is not known or is yes, all the factories been closedown?
1
They are still not telling the truth now. Thousands of patients with apparently infected symptom can’t get diagnostic test because once they are confirmed, they have to be accepted by Hosptal. But all hospitals in Wuhan are full. So they are intentionally left as “suspected”, not confirmed. Some died while waiting for being confirmed. They are not counted in death toll.
1
The Chinese liked to say that “today’s Soviet Union is tomorrow’s China.” It would serve them right.
1
The Chinese government cannot be trusted. Period.
1
Just let me know how much better the US would have managed it. Do you think US citizens would shelter in place for a week or two as they are doing in China?
1
The scary thing is, what are they not telling us now?
3
Nothing in China is transparent- the government controls everything and censoring doctors for trying to disclose the virus is not at all surprising.
The CDC said steps now being taken will cause the timeline of the virus to quickly diminish. There will still be thousands more in China who become sick and hundreds more may die, but there will be no epidemic.
Xi will maintain his tight control - that’s not going to change.
Neither will the lack of standards for cleanliness and hygiene change in China - the filth, disease, pollution and garbage in that Country is overwhelming.
It’s only a matter of time before the next new fatal virus comes out of Communist China.
Secrecy and order? No. The Chinese leadership is first and foremost interested in controlling their people. And now many may die because of it.
2
Quel surprise! Isn't this what many governments would do/have done?
The problem with the Old Habits of the Chinese government is that these are also likely to be the Current Habits.
As a result, the rate of transmission is probably dramatically under-reported at present.
As a result, the death rate is likely substantially under-reported at present.
As a result, the average age of death is likely much younger, as we now see with the first person who died due to the virus outside of China - the man in his 40s who was reported to have died in the Philippines today.
The communist party and the SARHK government have generated panic around the world. Carrie Lam has not implement proper policy to protect HKG people and medical care workers.
33
@Susanna
Hong Kong is geographically part of China. The mainland has serious overcrowding and pollution problems everyday. Once SARS II was recognized as a health tsunami Carrie Lam and Hong Kong went into action and closed 80% of their boarders. Plus their health experts have experience from SARS I. They are the model for everyone.
Suggesting that implementing travel bans will contain the virus is not right in this day and age. WHO has released multiple official statements that implementing travel bans to China will do more harm than good, and I'm surprised NYT is ignoring all WHO press releases in favor of opinions from non health/ disease experts.
People will still find ways travel after travel bans are implemented, albeit in smaller numbers, but also with fewer checks, so the risk of infected people entering the country unquarantined actually increases
1
I’m not a Trump fan at all but comparing our current government and the Chinese government is not even possible.
I’m pretty sure when I went to nytimes.com here in California it loaded immediately on my web browser unlike when I went to Shanghai and it take two minutes for the Chinese government to monitor my computer from a major hotel - blocked nytimes.com as well as many main international new sites - and also installed a hardcore virus on to my Apple laptop. I had to throw the computer away since it was so bad even are resetting everything.
Trump maybe pushing our government towards that style of monitoring but so far we are not even close to what life is like in mainland China.
Also comparing Coronavirus to the flu and cold is similar - you can not compare something you really don’t know, not experienced or even seen personally.
Chinese government and this Coronavirus are two beast I can tell 98% of these comments are coming from people who have never seen or experienced personally.
Hiding the truth is never wise. It leaves the public unprotected and gives bad things time to become worse. This should be a lesson from Wuhan, where the coronavirus has extended its grip on all of China, and reaches now all over the globe. This article makes clear that a more open and truthful approach---not worried about political r economic implications--would have saved many lives and avoided a crisis, a crisis that is becoming harder and harder to handle.
This should be a lesson for our present Administration vis-a-vis climate change. Ignoring the data for political or economic considerations , throwing away the consensus of the scientific community and making light of our own weather experiences---will only make it harder and harder to solve the problems climate will bring as it worsens. Unfortunately, we have an administration where truth is avoided, playing second fiddle to economics and politics.
2
The Chinese response here, while not perfect, has been far better than any other govnerment coild have done. Yes they were late in appreciating the full gravity of the situation (a virus that spreads before symptoms are known can do that to even the best epidemiologists), but once the full extent of the situation is known, how many other countries can quarantine and entire city, or rush to build dedicated medical facilities in days? In the relentless quest to criticize anything China-related, people have lost all sight of objectivity.
1
It is a warren of stalls selling meats, poultry and fish, as well as more exotic fare, including live reptiles and wild game that some in China prize as delicacies. According to a report by the city’s center for disease control, sanitation was dismal, with poor ventilation and garbage piled on wet floors. -
Bad Food can do a Great Damage to the population every where. Food should be under Global Control
1
Yeah, food should be under “global control’, but by who? Rich western countries and big corporations? More people have been sickened, and many died (albeit slowly via obesity, heart diseases, cancers, etc.), by eating “western-style” processed food. Why is eating “fresh” (uncooked) salad, (blood-stained) rare steaks, raw fish necessarily better or “civilized”, just because these are favored by Western societies? No too long ago eating sushi would have been considered too exotic by many in the West.
1
"The death toll passed 300, with the first death outside China reported in the Philippines."
Almost certainly the real numbers in China are many times higher than they are reporting. Could be two times higher, ten times, a hundred times. The majority of the great plagues that swept through the rest of the world over the last 1,500 years originated in that part of the world. Why would that dynamic change now, especially given the scope and scale of modern travel?
4
"At critical turning points, Chinese authorities put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm or political embarrassment."
Substitute, "Chinese authorities," for "Republicans," and that sentence sounds like what happened this week during the Senate impeachment hearings.
Looks like the world is following our lead and exploiting America's lack of leadership and honest confrontation of a major problem. This is what humanity looks like, when you've lost your moral compass, right Mitch?
Honestly, we can no longer make statements like this with a straight face.
2
Very valuable article.
Compare to the docudrama "Chernobyl."
Organizations such as bureaucracies or Enron or Big Banks get easily politicized and this seriously disturbs their abilities to function properly. There is a meaty literature on this. Whether communist or capitalist the internal dynamics muck up proper functioning.
This article is great because it goes beyond information about the virus and its handling, which is very valuable, and provides a good example of the damage to the public good caused by politics in the channels through which information needs to flow and work needs to get done.
There is the tendency to define "corruption" too narrowly to mean "being on the take." There are other forms of corruption as well. Corrupt in science can merely mean "debased."
Speaking of this virus, it is worth remembering how AIDS went out of control in large part because of politics. Health officials were not given the support necessary in the early days when the disease might have been nipped in the bud. Their profession was not allowed to function properly by the higher powers in Washington.
I hope this article brings to mind in the readers the nature of the general sorts of forces at work.
Too many in the world these days think that malfunctioning of society can be corrected by authoritarian governments. China is pretty authoritarian. It is interesting to watch and see where things go wrong nevertheless. What can we learn here?
3
Thank you NY Times for taking this matter seriously. For weeks I have seen nothing but naysayers and people downplaying what’s going on, and for the first time I am seeing a trusted publication reporting on the street deaths. Reports of people dropping dead (I assume heart failure) has been circulating for a few weeks now, something Beijing desperately wants covered up. This crisis could have been prevented but as we know the CCP just couldn’t help itself and fell back on old habits. Even with the crisis unfolding they still insist on trying to use it to their advantage, now they’re using the makeshift hospitals as a propaganda piece. "Mighty China has built a 1000 bed hospital in 10 days, behold the power of the Party" - the 1000 bed hospital is already full. At this point it’s time for tent cities and probably even utilizing sporting venues. Who needs Hollywood when we have this reality brought to us by the CCP? Only difference is we’re dealing with real lives here.
4
Age and Gender of Coronavirus cases
71% of cases Male with median age of 45.
Info from W.H.O. on Jan. 27
1
The United States did the same thing during the onset of the AIDS epidemic. The federal government (Reagan was POTUS at the time) would not listen let alone grant research dollars. The for- profit blood bank industry refused to listen to the medical experts and allowed high-risk individuals to continue to donate their blood. The years long delay in acknowledging AIDS and doing something about it now seems surreal. Read And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts ... it is an eye opener. Hard to believe that was only 40 years ago.
4
Good reporting by NYT, but I’m not sure Chinese Govt allows any access to contents from NYT or other independent publications for its own citizens. They spend huge amount of resources on monitoring and suppressing any hint of criticism, whether online or in print, with serious repercussions for the messenger of any criticism. This is the underlying flaw in their system. There is really no substitute for independent, free and open press.
1
"At critical turning points, Chinese authorities put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm or political embarrassment."
At a critical turning point, the US Senate put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm or political embarrassment.
4
@Francis Well, our Senate is under the control of a man who is under the marital control of a woman whose very wealthy Chinese shipping family empire depends on international trade. Heckuva coincidence at this point in time. Pretty sure the Democratic debate questions won't touch that with a ten-foot pole.
In my lifetime, I can’t remember a time when a country of 1.4b people were quarantined. We’re closing China? No flights. No cruises. No out....until April?
What do they know that we don’t?
1
Authoritarian regimes will always be incapable of dealing with epidemics, because their legitimacy is tied up in denying any reality that could conceivably make them look bad.
1
Before anyone buys masks, here is a little perspective: "Worldwide, seasonal influenza epidemics cause 3 million to 5 million severe cases every year and kill up to 650,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organization." (quote from USA TODAY) Not trying to diminish the spread or deaths thus far, but this is quite small compared to reg'lar ole seasonal flu.
1
How is the US doing much better? In another NYT article about the first possible case in NYC, here is a quote related to what the health commissioner said,
“ In recent days she has urged calm, telling New Yorkers to go about their lives.
Even those who had recently traveled from Wuhan and felt fine and symptom-free should continue with their regular routine, she said.”
Meanwhile the 195 citizens flown in from wuhan are under mandatory quarantine. The level of uncoordinated response to this virus has been disturbing.
6
It is unfortunate but we are teetering on a precipice when the leader of the USA continues to mimic and admire authoritarian leadership worldwide (Putin, Bolsonaro, Kim Jong Un) and shows a clear preference for lying continually. Trump appears to confuse authoritarian leadership with strength. Trump is dangerously close to mimicking China style leadership, when the free press is silenced, when the Republicans who disagree with him are afraid of even appear to disagree with him.
7
Mild words at the end from Dr. Li.
I'm sure this could never happen here. Just because the majority of our senate, aka the Republican senators, have participated in the most brazen, outlandish anti-constitutional coverup this country has ever seen, doesn't mean they'd lie to us about something as important as our health.
Right?
4
Interesting, but merely saying what we already knew. However, I am looking forward to whistleblower leaks that claim that the virus was caused by Trump.
Seems to me that the present US administration with their denial of science based facts on climate change and other subjects is leading us down a similar path.
5
When the Spanish Flu hit the United States in 1917 during WWI, officials used wartime powers to repress the word getting out. Instead of protecting the populace by canceling public spectacles like parades and such, the truth was concealed.
It's a shame that those in power use propaganda against those who will suffer for their cowardice.
4
All bureaucracies of dictatorships do this.
The Saudi government always lies about disease outbreaks, only coming clean later, when the facts have been revealed by third parties and the embarrasment of the truth exceeds that of the falsehood.
And China, for all the false pretense of election activities, is a dictatorship.
1
Why exactly we are still allowing tourism from China? The tourist who came to NYC had arrived 2 days earlier. Why was she allowed to come from a region that has an epidemic? Is it because our healthcare system is so cheap that we can afford to import epidemics?
Allowing tourism to or from China at this point in time is insane.
3
China's suppression of the emergence of deadly contagious virus is a typical response of a dictatorial government regime, making reality seem better than it is. Sound familiar? Typical of an authoritarian government that is not responsive to its citizens. Think about Trump's lies like altering the actual path of a hurricane on a map or declaring that the traumatic brain injuries experienced in the Iraq bombs were merely "headaches". Remember the alterations to the EPA website soon after Trump took office.
Can Trump and his lying government be trusted to reveal the truth about coronavirus in the USA? Will his government departments be honest? Acquittal from the impeachment indictment only emboldens Trump's confidence in lying. The only remaining difference between dictatorships and the current US government is the Free Press.
3
Silence doctors? We silence scientists. What's the problem?
4
It is disturbing that some of the health officials in these photos are not wearing gloves.
1
While I agree the Chinese government has likely been under-reporting the impact on their citizens, and they could've been more transparent, I would caution everyone against expecting ideal transparency and reaction by our own government officials.
I just watched Mayor DeBlasio's press conference, and he and his officials either mistakenly or deliberately misrepresented several aspects of the virus. They claim that the virus cannot be spread by asymptomatic carriers, that it can only be spread by intimate contact, and that the virus cannot contaminate inanimate objects. WRONG WRONG WRONG on all 3 accounts, as per information trickling out from news reports in Asia.
I would suggest doing your own research and preparing for a potential outbreak scenario in and around the 5 boroughs. Based on how the Mayor and his administration appear to be reacting, they are not attributing nearly enough caution and hazard to the situation. Be safe!
8
There is a lot of missing information about the coronavirus.
My understanding and that is from reading between the lines
which we shouldn't have to do is that it is not the coronavirus
we have to fear but the susceptibility to post virus
viral pneumonia. those two words should frighten us all but no where do I see this clearly stated.
2
I hope China closes the market where it is believed the Coronavirus started. It should have never been permitted to operate in the first place.
1
This is Exhibit A for why:
We need a liberal democracy with a free press.
We need free speech protected.
We need social media companies need to flag misinformation and be held accountable for disseminating it.
We need to ensure that our country doesn’t became an autocracy afraid of truth snd science.
We need to support people and governments in other countries who strive for what we need, because they need those thing too.
We are all connected. The question is what we make of those connections.
18
@Ken W ... Obama once promised to be “the most transparent administration” of all time. Instead, Obama’s Department of Justice has led the most targeted campaign against whistleblowers.
3
@Ken W, your goals have some internal contradictions. Making people accountable for disseminating “misinformation” is exactly what the Chinese thought they were doing when the police visited Dr. Li. Unlike the Chinese (and many NYT commenters) I don’t believe ideas and information should go through gatekeepers. Today’s “malicious rumor” sometimes turns out to be tomorrow’s obvious truth.
3
This morning’s print addition had an interesting graphic showing a 6-foot cone of contagion around an infected person. What caught my eye, though, was a sentence in the graphic’s subtitles: The virus lifespan on surfaces is unknown. I guess we will find that out when the first wave of product from infected factory workers hits our shores. Especially with smart phones we hold directly to our faces.
4
@HANK
There is a published scientific study about how long coronaviruses in general live on surfaces. At room temperature about a week. At 4 degrees Celsius (about 41 degrees F) a month.
See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26556276. It is a free article.
I think that this report gives the impression that Beijing was doing the cover up. Infact, it was the local Wuhan authorities that first initiated the cover up. The Central Government has since sent their people to take control of the situation and ensure that there is full information flow.
Also note that Beijing has fired one of the local health authority for his inability to answer basic questions.
5
The entire brutal dictatorship of China sets the tone for hiding the truth out of fear. It’s why we protect whistleblowers.
2
I have to wonder if, to some extent, the secrecy might have been to avoid widespread panic (in addition to political motivations?). Of course it shouldn't be kept from scientists and doctors and of course there might be ways of preventing panic and providing assurances that don't require absolute silence. Since we have never heard calm, reassuring words from our current leader, and since he admires this type of leadership, I might anticipate the same from him. Or else he will blab on twitter and frighten everyone while reminding us that he is the greatest at somethung. At the same time he will blame China not only for the virus but for the downturn in his sacred stock market, which takes precedence over all else.
6
Nice comprehensive article. While on one hand China could be reprimanded for delay in announcing the pandemic, it has swiftly thereafter taken steps to prevent its spread.
It needs to be thought if people and businesses affected due to such delayed action, should be allowed to make a monetary claim towards potential fatalities, mental trauma and the business loss. There has to be an international protocol governing such aspects to prevent regimes from acting in a irresponsible manner.
5
Beyond the politics, this and other articles from the Times missed the big picture about the virus crisis and why, unfortunately, such a health crisis is bound to repeat itself (and not just in China): the presence of live animals markets across China, which is traditionally popular. Even supermarkets like Auchan sell live fish in China, due to the importance of freshness for the Chinese consumer. Open-air markets in China or elsewhere are generally not super clean environments--it is why they are called markets! But when you add live animals to the equation, exotic or not, I think that you are raising the risk of contamination.
12
Not only live animals, but live WILD animals, greatly increasing the risk that pathogens previously unknown to us are introduced. China has closed these markets “until the end of the crisis”, but they will be right back at it the moment this coronavirus is controlled. Those markets are petri dishes for our next deadly virus, for which we will also get to thank China.
11
@Melinda Mueller Yes, I hope that the Chinese authorities will address the issue of live (wild) animals markets in the years to come.
4
@Michel Yep, that's true. That's a big part of why they start. This article is about the damage that government secrecy, in service to power, does to spread it.
The NYT is not missing any big picture here. They are reporting on the attempts to shut down important information by the big bad government.
It's also a warning about allowing American republicans to shut down important information about their leader, but that's another topic.
1
In addition to reporting on global politics, it would be helpful to go local and provide practical information about measures the authorities are taking in New York City to prepare for more cases. New Yorkers know how day in and day out we are basically on top of each other, touching the same surfaces, breathing and sneezing on each other, eating at salad bars etc. I imagine most New Yorkers are not panicking by any means, but we do want to do what we can to avoid getting sick.
It would be great if, for example, there were hand sanitizer dispensers at subway stations to remind people to wash their hands. Could the authorities assure us that they are taking extra care to disinfect buses and subway cars? They are so dirty. Could they assure us of a free ambulance ride to an emergency room so we don't have to use public transportation or a taxi if we are feeling ill and have come in contact with people of high risk? Would the city be willing to actually deal with the fact that it can be spread when there are no symptoms, and shut things down until we figure this thing out? How about information on masks and prevention so that if we decide to wear or not wear a mask, it's a matter of common sense and not a "statement" of some kind?
I know, I know. The flu still kills more people. For now. But it seems the authorities really don't understand how contagious this is, and how fatal. Often, official "advice" refuses to admit this reality, and so feels like gaslighting.
17
@Clarice
Differences between "everyday" flu and coronavirus is that the former offers a vaccine (how many who get the flu do not get vaccinated) and treatments which can be helpful.
Coronavirus has neither option. A strong immune system is apparently the best and only bet against becoming really ill with the latter.
6
While this is not a situation to panic about, it's been instructive watching how each stage has played out in the ways the CDC and WHO have modeled and prepared for.
The ghost in the machine is the "Great Flu" epidemic of 1918. Ever since then, the CDC has worried about, warned, and predicted that should another similar flu come along, the game changer would be international travel.
The number who died in 1918 has been continually revised upward, with some historians putting it as high as 100 million dead (initial numbers did not account for India and China where the losses were catastrophic). My guess is that it falls somewhere between the "low" figures of 20-50 million (still horrific) and that staggering number. Had their been plane travel then, some historians and scientists have speculated that the numbers of dead would have been akin to the Bubonic plague (in terms of total ratio annihilated).
There is a reason the WHO and CDC kick into high gear when events like this happen. We have to always be prepared for the worst and learn from each episode. Cutting off the pathway of infection through enforced quarantine in 1918 ultimately broke the chain of infection. Then, as now, it pays to suffer a few weeks or months of inconvenience if it safeguards millions.
We can do our part by supporting these organizations, trusting them, and doing what we're asked to do, no matter how inconvenient. There's inconvenient and there's dead. Let's get our priorities straight.
25
Can we start calling this disease by a unique name? Turns out that various forms of Coronavirus have been circulating for years, and some folks are confused and saying that this isn’t a new disease.
My recommendation is Wuhan Coronavirus.
18
“At critical turning points, Chinese authorities put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm or political embarrassment.”
The same lead sentence will appear with American replaced for Chinese when the effects of climate denial and environmental deregulation policies finally hit the USA.
22
@GW
And our response to coronavirus.
3
And we're supposed to expect, that here in the United States, our leadership is fit to deal with a potential mass outbreak? The same leadership that incessantly threatened to withhold funding to help California combat the forest fires this past summer season? All because the mayor criticized the current Administrator's environmental policy? Please.
You can bet your bottom dollar that if this gets worse, in some form or another, the reigning bodies will try and use it benefit their own selves. I can already hear it coming down the pipe, "No medical funding for sanctuary cities. No medical aid for states represented by those who do not support a border wall. No medical aid, in any form or funding, to the states or districts represented by those who 'Hate America.'"
21
There was no mechanism to protect the people. The only operation in place was designed to protect the government.
9
@AACNY
Just like Republicans protecting Trump instead of the Constitution.
2
Just as the Official Secrets Act is in place to protect officials, not secrets.
1
It is clear that China is not acting as an responsible global citizen.
Furthermore, concentrating global manufacturing in one country presents a major risk to human safety and well-being.
Consider the impact on the global supply chain if one country is forced to close its borders to contain a highly infectious and dangerous virus.
We must decentralise and distribute global manufacturing to minimise the risk of catastrophic events affecting one country.
This will also have the benefit of solving many of the economic problems in the western world associated with loss of highly skilled manufacturing jobs to China.
9
If I could hit the like button into infinity, I would. You expressed my thoughts beautifully.
While I share your reservations with the Chinese system of government and their desire to control information in their society, I'm not convinced that any government in the world is fully prepared for a lethal virus that is able be transmitted before it shows symptoms and masquerades as a common cold. This virus is the result of population density combined with air travel.
Ask yourself this, would this have been handled better if this virus began with a US citizen without healthcare and lived in a city like New York? Would the US government be as quick to quarantine regions and lock down millions of the population (in an election year no less)?
The answer isn't to blame particular government, but to pool our resources to overcome this issue as a species, because if we don't it has to potential to wipe humanity off this planet.
15
Note to our Senate... this is what it looks like when ideology and loyalty to the leader trump (double meaning absolutely intended) the public good.
27
This is an outbreak of glorified pneumonia!
Please give us the epi curve on WHO is dying — I’m sure we’ll find that just as with the flu — it is the old and vulnerable who die.
Let’s go away with the panic, and definitely stop with the mask hoarding- and focus on hand washing — and simple hygiene practices scientifically proven to prevent the spread of diseases way more contagious, e.g. cholera.
Finally, this response seems way overblown and one can’t help to wonder if it has something to do with this administration trying to stick it to China. Let’s hope the NYT and other news outlets can stop reporting on the beervirus / coronavirus ad naseum and direct coverage to another deserving issue.
4
It’s also the very youngest who die.
@Lisa As one of the “vulnerable,” I don’t see this as “glorified pneumonia.” The higher the number of sick people, the more vulnerable the elderly and chronically-ill will be. Thanks for your compassion.
1
@Lisa
Cholera is much less infectious and is not spread by airborne droplets.
There is simply no substitute for a robust, proactive, and well financed approach to public health. This should include a priori legislation and policy coupled with ongoing public health initiatives, education, and yes, funding. SARS, MERS, and now the third news making Coronavirus will be far from the last such outbreaks. Why the Chinese authorities suppressed truth is maddening! As the esteemed expert on such matters, GEICO, puts it..."becuase that's what the Chinese do".
3
The Times in London has a graph comparing the speed of the spread of this versus SARS. The chart is actually scary showing the progress of this new virus almost like a rocket going up vs the SARS progress more like a plane taking off.
4
Your criticism of China's handling of the coronavirus is unjustified!
The new virus was detected and confirmed in a matter of days, no small feat in the midst of an active flu season and a major holiday in which millions of people were travelling to celebrate with their families.
The market that was found to be the likely origin of the disease was shut down and disinfected. Medical facilities were mobilized and augmented to treat infected persons.
Of course, care was taken to avoid widespread panic until the likely method of transmission was determined, avoidance measures could be recommended, and suspected carriers could be isolated.
Only the "iron-fisted authoritarianism" that has built a dozen or so megacities in a few decades could respond so decisively to avoid widespread panic and impose massive quarantines to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Had the disease originated in Africa or India we would still be wondering why so many people are getting sick and dying from acute flu and pneumonia!
8
In contrast to SARS, the Wuhan coronavirus is transmitted before the patient shows symptoms, a successful strategy for a pathogen. Paraphrasing the play by H. Ibsen, Dr. Li became “The enemy of the state” for doing his job. This is another reason why authoritarian governments pose a threat for national security. Republicans in the Senate should have this in mind when they vote to acquit a president who has shown a predisposition to authoritarianism.
11
In this rabidly media-infested environment we have gone in the opposite direction, with each news station never losing an opportunity to keep us updated about the latest case of coronavirus in the U.S.. Given the fear being spread, even if inadvertently, I thought it was only a matter of time before Asians would be targeted in this country. This morning I heard on NPR that that has come to pass.
2
The title of this article is much too kind, saying China's response to this growing pandemic is "old habits." When did China's policy of secrecy, suppression of free speech, suppression of a free press ever change? Please, get back to reality, or this problem will never be solved. Thank you.
6
@Southern Boy
Yeah. At least Trump's attacks on the press are relatively new (at least in magnitude) relatively new in the US. Although Nixon gave it a try.
2
Another example of the contempt the Chinese regime has for It's own people and the global community. Add it to the list.
4
This is why freedom of the press is so important. Ironically, it seems that Isolationism is going to wipe out the population. Thank you NY Times for the great reporting!
4
Of course. Autocrats don't make mistakes, so when something goes wrong is must be hidden. Pay attention, America.
9
No doubt Trump admires the Chinese approach to dealing harshly with those who subvert the chain of command and reveal potentially important and embarrassing information directly to the public.
AKA, whistleblowers.
12
No doubt Trump admires the Chinese approach to dealing harshly with those who subvert the chain of command and reveal potentially important and embarrassing information directly to the public.
AKA, whistleblowers.
4
This is a preview of the America Trump longs for, where a "strong man" surrounded by sycophants, minions and courtiers controls everything, especially public health and welfare.
The senate proves it can be done along with Trump's cabinet officers.
He ruins our health and the health of our children, destroying clean water and air, the very essence of life
MAGA!
10
Who are we to criticize authoritarianism in China when we have ongoing lies and coverups coming from the White House for the purpose of interfering with another country's leaders and trying to tamper with American elections? And that's just what we know right now. Who are we to condemn how another country handles an outbreak of disease when we have a president who tries to redraw hurricane maps and his followers who deny the reality of science?
13
Silencing experts and focusing on secrecy, and don't forget the incessant lying. Wow, you'd think they learned those techniques from the Trump administration handbook: "The Art of the Steal".
5
China's modus operandi of lying and underestimating the cases will teach them a good lesson from the virus. Nature is truth and they want to lie against nature. This will cost them dearly and hopefully teach them a lesson. Also this is an opportunity to set them back as an overly ambitious nation. Stopping flights is a good example. Their system of massive overcrowding combined with poor regulations and non transparency will be there demise. If not this virus another will be behind this one.
What autocratic China is doing to contain the dangerous se ret of the pandemic, the GOP is doing with Trump’s corruption. This is where we are. Neither country is working for the good of the whole.
4
But this is only half of the story. To report the other half you need to follow the money between local Wuhan officials and the owner of the seafood market. That will explain why they were so desperate to not let the outbreak news out so that it won’t lead to even more shocking tales of corruption and nepotism. They were just trying to save themselves the best they could. People who live around the seafood market had long complained of unsavory health practice and wild animals being openly traded and slaughtered on the spot to no avail.
5
SARS came from Civet cats. This strain of coronavirus is suspected to come from bats. Hopefully China will have learned the economic lesson and going forward ban the trade on these exotic animals.
China rules with an iron fist. I am sure the government has the will and the means to stop this exotic animal consumption for vanity nonsense.
4
As Inspector Renault said in Casablanca - I am shocked- shocked- to find that gambling is going on in here!
3
The problem with autocratic closed societies is demonstrated again by the Chinese. While they sat on their hands denying a problem, they end up embarrassing themselves more so than if they had come clean in the beginning. Why do you suppose this virus, Sars, and Mers all came from China? They do not learn from their experiences. Openness would help their cause.
2
The US authorities/government minimizes (It’s a hoax) the climate chaos threat in favor of the fossil fuel industry.
8
The real lesson here is not the predictable Chinese cover-up of events, but the failure of the medical community to take a more wholistic approach to the treatment of viruses and infections. Someone sneezes in this country and he or she is given a bagful of antibiotics. We cavalierly dismiss natural medicines and homeopathic treatment as the stuff of mat hugging yoga enthusiasts when instead we should look to harness the natural remedies our planet provides for us. One day we will finally learn that we our inextricably connected to this Earth. It’s destruction will result in ours.
2
Isn't that the typical of the old bamboo curtain government? Can its own citizens even ever trust them? The world has to be watchful of this administrations policies and act in their own interest.
Where I live, a family is returning from holiday in China and they announced to the media in a story done by a local tv station "We will quarantine ourselves in our home for several days to make sure we aren't ill".
Not so fast, folks. This isn't poison ivy.
The proper authorities have been contacted and their plans for a few secluded days of binge watching The Sopranos won't fix this.
Very angry people here posting threats against this family on FB. They will need official quarantine for their own protection. Hoping they will be moved to a military base quarantine hospital.
2
@American 2020 the incubation period has a ceiling of about 14 days, so yup, hanging out at home for 2-3 days is not going to cut it.
2
Big government always wants to protect itself. History shows, it always extends its power, erodes and eventually erases human rights, controls information and sows seeds of sorrow.
Beware big government. Maoist policies starved and imprisoned tens of millions. Hugo Chavez policies recently took Venezuela from affluence to starvation. Please make sure you understand economic history before we vote.
5
It is getting even worse. Now CCP is telling doctors/scientists there not to publish scientific papers in order to concentrate on fighting the diseases. A series of papers published in Lancet, NEJM...revealed too much about the reality, in CCP's mind.
2
Given that China is ruled by a man who has banned images of Winnie the Pooh because of his likeness to the storybook character, is it any wonder that Beijing tried to pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary once the coronavirus started to wreak havoc?
3
I have great concern with the World Health Organization (WHO) pertaining to this deadly Coronavirus outbreak. As, if anyone watched or listened to their briefing/Q&A a few days ago referencing the virus, the director general - Tedros Adhanom - could not have been more effusive in his praise for China, how they handled this outbreak and the steps they took/and are taking to thwart the spread. Also, he made it a point to remind the world not to castigate China and its leadership in this affair. One has to ask, "what's going on here?" This article here sites complete, detailed and investigated facts - and is almost identical to another I read 4-5 days ago. And yet WHO had their... shall I say "talking points." Hmm... "the world" should be asking this organization that represents and has "world" in its title, "what's up?"
4
This deplorable behavior seems to be typical of countries where "saving face" is so culturally entrenched. The exact same pattern has happened before in China as well as Japan (recall the Fukushima nuclear disaster). The UN and the WHO should condemn such behavior forcefully.
1
China is just repeating the Big Tobacco strategy invented in the United States.
3
Wuhan is a big city on the river and has beautiful lakes park with a fascinating museum with locally found million year old “Peking Man” skulls and antiquities and historic art to boggle the mind. The open markets are fascinating and the spicy noodles and hotpot are delicious. A close Wuhan friend and colleague with whom I have been in daily communication on WeChat, told me this morning that there are 8 doctors including Dr Li (highlighted in the article suffering from CoronaVirus) now being hailed as heroes -translating to “the Glory 8”. He reports that markets have plenty of food—as result of preparations for the New Year— and the rate of new infections should drop as a result of the field hospital where he said medics “marched in” today, giving local people hope and building confidence in President Xi’s decisive actions. He also says: “ the management systems in Wuhan and HUBEI will be crashed down after the ending of this storm “ referring to the resulting recriminations that are occurring relative to the local authorities’ inaction. Clearly, it much more difficult to obscure the truth in today’s China. It will be interesting to see how WeChat, despite censorship, affects the dialogue on government transparency and whether the central government will ban the sale of exotic meats.
2
This comes as a surprise? Anybody remember 3 mile island? Or as recently as now, the Afghan war? Governments lie all day about all sorts of stuff. The more authoritative and less democratic the government, the more they do it, just because it’s easier to get away with it. The army doesn’t keep us free. The Chinese and russsians have big, powerful armies. A free press keeps us free. The ability to dig into darkcorners and report on things without the government being able to shut them down is the only thing between us and wuhan.
1
What I find particularly frightening is the silencing of doctors; experts who have the duty to keep citizens alive. China's silencing is much like trump administration's ban on govt. scientists and environmental agencies referencing climate change. Our country (under trump) is in social and political retrograde.
3
I expect that China will end of paying a large price both economically and in terms of saving safe.
My wife and I had been talking of an Asian Cruise but we won't be thinking of that again anytime soon. What will this do to Chinese tourism? How will this influence people making decisions about doing international business with China? How will this influence peoples decisions about buying foods and medicines from China, toys, and baby products.
5
My question is whether the west doesn't overreact to these "foreign plagues." Yes, we should take reasonable steps to mitigate the effects of this new virus, but many more people are dying of the ordinary flu in the US than have died in China from coronavirus. If we are serious about saving lives, how about putting more money into an effective flu vaccine for next year and try to increase the number of people vaccinated?
7
Have there been a series of algorithms developed that can provide a prediction model of the spread of this virus under various alternative scenarios that the public can see? The tech industry should be useful for public health as well as social media and advertising.
4
Yes epidemiologists have sophisticated models, but it's only as good as the data they put in . Publicly there is conflicting data about rates of infection, how long a patient is contagious and when etc. The there's the risk of a few super spreaders who can throw a model off.
3
I am not surprised that so many comments here criticize China for everything from silencing from the top down, to the wild animal markets and overall animal treatment.
But how about we take a look at ourselves and learn from this?
There is silencing in the US as well. Pompeo is example number one. Within the White House, Republican senators are watched closely and monitored for disloyalty to Trump. This breeds fear and mistakes. And Trump is dismantling environmental protections and science continually.
Then there is the health care system and those folks who have been influenced to be leery of vaccines on top of those who have no health care plan. How many unnecessary deaths will occur should something break out?
Last point, large scare factory farming. Yes. It's behind closed doors and few ever witness it, but it exists and it is a ticking time bomb. Poultry raised in close conditions and swine, any animal raised like this are petri dishes for mutating disease pathogens. Antibiotics are wearing thin and experts know this.
20
@KA American factory farms are indeed unhealthy and the meat and eggs produced therein are disgusting. I no longer buy either from our local grocery; in fact, there is not much I do buy from supermarkets as I generally find the food abysmal (ultra processed, chemical-laden, poor quality) and the labeling incomprehensible.
I wish we had European food standards.
6
@KA , we have an FDA, a representative democracy, a free press, a vegan movement, and the best drug research in the world. American drugs have saved billions of lives. It is our best foreign aid program. China cannot shine our soles when it comes to these issues.
2
@Snowball
Not disputing American drugs have saved lives and it's big industry, but I think you missed the point of what I was saying. There is always room to learn and improve. Trump is at a precipice. He confuses strong with authoritarian. He admires authoritarian leaders more than the ones fighting to maintain democracy, free speech, accessible health care and high standard education for all.
1
This is biological warfare. Whether accidental or intentional the Chinese knew that there was a problem and covered it up. Rather than seek help from the World Health Organization the Chinese Government silenced concerned medical professionals and citizens alike. There has been no report of patients that have recovered which means the 14000+ infected will soon be casualties.
8
@Patrick This is just an outright falsehood. The vast majority of those infected recover quickly.
This kind of misinformation is irresponsible and dangerous. Shame on you!
I was struck by "not using the words 'viral pneumonia.'" That sounds a lot like telling state government workers not to use the words "climate change."
And for Rand Paul: given what the whistleblowers in China went through, do you really think we are any different here?
We now have nature's blueprint for controlling the population: it won't be this virus. And probably not the next one, either. But there will be one, it will probably originate in either China or Africa, it could have been stopped, and it will be far more deadly. It's just a matter of time. Sufficient will isn't there.
After all, "Politics is Always No 1."
25
@Mike S. Yes, it sounds exactly like that. Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s administration effectively banned official use of the terms “climate change”, “global warming” and "sustainability", according to first-hand accounts of state agency employees under his Republican reign. And it shows. This comes not from a communist, but a very capitalist businessman. Sunshine laws indeed.
1
Sadly this is but one more example of government lying in an effort to 'look good' or minimize bad news. This seems to be the standard response - admitting the truth only when it cannot be hidden any longer.
There are enough reports from widely varied sources that indicate things are far worse than what's being officially reported.
10
Chernobyl, Wuhan coronavirus, extreme inequality, runaway climate change, billionaires and toxic capitalism... all results directly related to the character of those we have chosen to lead. Only one candidate has proven they are running not to give themselves power, but to give power away, just like the Founders of our country intended. That’s why his candidacy resonates with millions across the country and inspires participation in democracy. People feel a reason to help the world, themselves and their neighbors. We want to see the result in our world from leadership and democratic participation that’s the opposite of Chernobyl and the coronavirus.
7
@Lilly Absolute language usage hardly makes your point.
Shows how hard it is to find authoritarian regimes that tell the truth.
This enormous and amazingly successful nation can't even tell its citizens the truth about a danger that is growing. How can we rely on ourselves in America when our government refuses to tell us the truth, and our press is muzzled by money and power?
11
Once again, non-medically trained people deciding for the rest of us. Let doctors be doctors and let the politicians get elected out of office.
The US government isn't much better. It's the uninformed telling the rest what's best for us.
Bad government is bad government. A universal observation.
17
As much as the Chinese government is to blame for the initial handling of this crisis, consider our current president and his party, ready to disregard science when it’s inconvenient (denying climate change), public health (getting rid of the ACA, with Medicaid and perhaps Medicare someday if they get their way), and even weather predictions (Trump’s Sharpie) - all to serve their ideology. They are no different than the Chinese government, and perhaps even worse in some ways, because they persist in spite of evidence to the contrary.
19
@lm Never miss an opportunity to blame Trump for somethign. Love it! I cannot wait to vote for him again!
1
It's inevitable that the virus will spread around the world. There will always be pockets worldwide of the virus affecting groups. It seems the fact it has a long incubation period will only further assist the spread of the virus...people won't realize they have it until others are infected. Emphasis should be placed on how to practice good infection control.
5
Was the WHO aware, as it was praising Chinese health authorities in report after report, that the concerns of health workers were being suppressed?
8
Whether it is the truth as told by witnesses at Trump’s impeachment or by state officials in China about the presence of a health crisis with global implications, the sunlight is and has always been the best disinfectant.
8
The SARS intermediate reservoir is usually assumed to be the Masked Palm Civet, not the Asian Palm Civet. These are two separate species.
6
This sequence of events reflects a broader pattern of suppression of warnings about multiple ongoing emergencies.
Climate tops a now lengthy list -- groundwater depletion, drought; soil degradation; deforestation; desertification; ocean acidification; biodiversity loss, mass species extinction, ecosystem collapse; sea level rise, coastal subsidence, saltwater infiltration; mass displacement; aging, economic contraction; stranded assets, insolvency, debt crises.
In every instance, there has been a coordinated effort by a nexus of private and political interests to suppress warnings, discredit science and derail intervention.
It represents normalization of pathological and frankly genocidal behavior, driven by ignorance, greed and carelessness about consequences.
Its the result of a failed socio-technical complex of clueless analysts preparing useless decision models for incompetent executives -- self-serving mathematical games representing gambles on unrealistic statistical outcomes destined for loss.
Its a lack of moral hazard by decision-makers, easy transfer of risk to the powerless and vulnerable, and the assumption there will always be a public bailout with no real consequences.
There is a rapidly shrinking window of intervention to tackle this complex and interconnected set of emergencies, and we have already blown past numerous tipping points.
Continued inaction will result in an unending crisis of an incomprehensible magnitude compared with this one outbreak.
8
To say that the Chinese mishandled the virus crisis is an understatement. We can expect to see the Chinese authorities starting to point fingers at one another, just like all politicians do in every government. In our efforts to contain the virus from spreading further and killing many more, the Chinese regime is likely to undergo a shakedown behind the scenes. We can all hope the change is for a more open and transparent China in the future.
7
Yes, lots of finger pointing to come. Lots of local officials to be jailed and re-educated. But the main culprit, Xi Jinping, will come out unscathed. Without any challenge to his dictatorship, the threat to him is choking on dumplings.
I'm not a bit surprised, and expected this. We're talking about China, where it's all about saving face, both internally (to their citizens) and externally.
10
China built a hospital to care for coronavirus in ten days-why could they not develop a world class CDC-Center forDisease Control-to warn of viruses and help prevent the spread.China has excellent doctors-too bad the politicians overrule their decisions.The politicians are protecting their positions instead of their people-that has a familiar ring to it.
9
Before we rightly criticize the Chinese government, we should consider what the United State government is doing to contribute to climate change. The Coronavirus is a public health emergency, but it will pass, probably killing hundreds or thousands. In contrast, climate change is an existential threat for all of humanity.
The Chinese government's denialism and secrecy is making a bad situation worse, but the world is responding. The United States government is actively accelerating climate change and the consequences will be devastating on a global scale.
8
@David
Climate change is not and has never been a threat for all humanity. Not even its worse projection.
2
Important reporting on the ramifications to public health/safety when a government either ignores or is reluctant to face the facts from their experts. But this type of behavior isn't restricted to governments like the PRC's. Please don't forget that the White House had pressured officials at NOAA to publicly issue misinformation regarding the forecast path of Hurricane Dorian last September, due to the President's vanity, which could've had potential impact to public safety. (from a Sept. 11th, 2019 NYT article)
7
Ironically, this is the behavior that China is exporting as an alternative to western democracies.
6
Watch the science fiction movie, VIRAL (2016). eerily similar, (without the science fiction bits), and contains 'containment'. Highly recommend this movie and saw it on NZ TV a couple of weeks to a month ago.
5
This is why Republican unblinking loyalty to Trump is so dangerous. Authoritarians operate on one principle, and one principle only: power at all costs.
They will literally sacrifice everything to keep their own power. They’ll even bribe millions of their own citizens in order to gain their acceptance of oppression of hundreds of millions of others.
Money and power will drive people to do anything. They’ll cover up viral infection epidemics. Lie about conditions following natural disasters, lie about who the state is keeping in prison and why, cover up conspiracies involving government contact awards etc.
If Trump told a Republican Senator to lie about something, let’s say it was arsenic in the air related to contaminated coal plant exhaust coming from a plant operated by one of Trump’s best campaign donors and golf buddies or something. What do you think that Senator would do? Do you trust that they would inform the public of the health risk?
In every authoritarian regime, every single one, the regime itself poses a far greater danger to the populace than any external threat. The upcoming election in 2020 is the last chance for Americans to save themselves from going further down that dark hole. And that’s the scary thing. We are nowhere near rock bottom. I’m a veteran of OIF & OEF. I’ve seen rock bottom with my own eyes. If Trump “wins” in 2020, it’ll put us on a rocket fired straight down.
13
@Austin Ouellette
I agree with you. Very wise words all voters should heed.
1
The lack of strong government regulations caused this. An unregulated world is chaotic and ultimately self destructive. This should be considered every time someone advocates for “small government”.
5
Why is anyone including the Chinese surprised?
That's a central.command communist government in action.
No good news is ever good enough and bad news is never that bad.
I was in Chernobyl.
On the bus ride from Kiev - they show us a video of events of the disaster.
Even Gorbachev was not informed in Moscow for a few days.
Their chief nuclear scientist assured Gorbachev - a rather minor incident
And folks in Chernobyl went about going about knowing an explosion had taken place.
Only after Scandinavian countries officially made inquiries - someone had the courage to tell Gorbachev
Even then, they first needed a committee to evaluate.
Once its results were known - folks in Chernobyl were given a few hours and could take only one suitcase on the way out.
It was done in such a hurry that even today - you see kids toys scattered around apartment, books left open.
So, this is hardly a surprise.
What the world needs to do is insist via WHO that China shut down all these types of markets - for good.
Until that is - they develop internationally approved guidelines to allow a market like this to function.
Given their wealth - Chinese are now the biggest group of travelers
An unsuspecting world can't afford another epidemic.
11
@Neil
Interestingly, the initial steps of denial to protect the government were evident in Iran's early denials of having shot down that plane. To his credit, the Iranian president threatened to resign if the mullahs didn't come clean.
Authoritarian regimes pose a significant risk to the well being of everyone on the planet. And, no, the US doest not have such an authoritarian regime. It helps no one to make specious claims like this that simply obscure the real problem.
4
The CDC states that between 10,000-25,000 deaths from influenza have been estimated/recorded so far in 2020. Yet the media focuses on the 300 deaths in China and 1 or so in other countries. The flu is the danger, but perhaps it just doesn't sell.
4
@unclejake
Consider the flu kills under normal circumstances. Now imagine a massive influx of flu carriers. Of course, there's concern.
3
This is not at all surprising: Culturally (as well as politically), China values stability over results. It is far better for an official to bury troublesome information, if (s)he can do so successfully--and in this case, was not--than to handle the trouble effectively.
Rewards accrue not to those who nimbly sail a rough sea, but to the captain who says all is well (even when he knows darn well it is not).
All governments will try to shape the flow of information, but it is shameful when the criminal law is used to keep any but national security secrets.
3
I am watching Chinese news in English and Chinese daily to keep up with all the efforts being taken by civilians and governments alike. The number of infected and of those who died is updated daily. Press conference is given daily. All the numbers reported by the western media are taken directly from those reported directly to the people in China. The government is,in constant communication with the WHO.
While nurses and doctors from all provinces are working to help those infected and making sure that food and normal services,are continually being provided to those quarantined, you're here pointing fingers and exploiting the tragedy of the entire people of China to score political points?
Of the lowest of the low are those who exploit the tragedy of the vulnerable and innocent to aggrandize themselves. When the nation's president does that, when its media supports that, when its people votes for that, then who can they blame when they themselves suffer a tragedy of their own making.
@LiChinglong
I can understand your sensitivity, especially considering the heroic efforts being made to help those infected.
But understand that a government's actions being open to scrutiny, even when it depicts government in the most negative light, is what is best in the long run. It's how mistakes are exposed, which forces reluctant bureaucrats to change and improve.
It may seem unfair, and we have all felt that way at times, but a system that exposes everything is best.
5
@AACNY
It's funny that you see that about China but not about Trump's lies, crimes and cover ups.
1
@AACNY -/- exposure is only one thing, the other parts include management (pre-event risk analysis and preparation), management of the mitigation process. Metrics for acceptable results have to be determined, and modified, as events unfold.
“ At critical turning points, Chinese authorities put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm or political embarrassment”
At critical turning points, Boeing management put secrecy and profit ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking shareholder alarm or financial loss.
9
Over 8,000 US citizens died of flu complications in 2019.
Mr Trump has just been granted immunity from any laws or acts he does while in office.
With medicare, social security, and affordable healthcare on Mr Trumps agenda to cut. China isn't the threat to the US
9
@Bill -/- ... if there is no specific law outlawing a president from shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, then it’s legal. Executions begin at noon. Of course, we jest, as the statement is really a comment about the depth of angst felt by those who’ve not kept up with the whims of governance for profit. You snooze, you lose, or you cheat and lie around the edges. We’ll see what sort of governance the next generation chooses. I suspect they’ll be more liberal with solutions governed by global sustainability than the corporate bottom line.
I can imagine similar things happening here, if the timing were right and the messaging unpopular - say right around the elections. This is an administration that denies climate change, is trying to kill health care and cut Medicaid - care for the fragile population most likely to be the human reservoir - and uses both propaganda and a defacto state news outlet to spread false information and lies.
Of course, we'd probably just be told it was pro-immigration forces that got us in this predicament.
And why can I see it happening? Remember AIDS? Our conservative government ignored it - who cared about the decimation of the gay community? - until it was shown to be a danger to the whole community. Then we finally leapt into action.
I can deplore China's slow reactions, but I can't feel like a superior American.
7
Imagine a similar scenario under the Trump Administration 4 years from now if he is re elected, as he continues to destroy expertise in our government and pushes “alternative facts”. This is the best illustration of why we need to support the work of scientists and the free press - the truth can be a life or death matter.
9
Could we trust our government, the Trump government, to handle a crisis like this differently? Given its penchant for secrecy. contempt for science and mistrust of nonpolitical federal workers, something like this could easily happen here.
6
The Chinese authoritarian police state is responsible for the spread of this epidemic, by trying to keep this terrible epidemic away from public knowledge. Now their own people must be basically imprisoned in Wuhan to keep the epidemic from spreading. If the knowledge the medical staff had was accepted, the epidemic could likely have been stopped sufficiently. This is the difficulty of authoritarian governments--take note that truth does not run these governments.
3
@K.M
Well, truth does not matter to Republicans or Trump so what does that mean for us? That's a rhetorical question. We already know; the destruction of our Republic.
1
Power based on control through fear is where we are headed in this country, if Trump wins again. Another reason to vote for the candidate with the ability to lead through empathy and dignity for all, just like the spirit of the Constitution. I hope enough of us understand this is our last chance to elect the most beloved, consistent president in our lifetime. #NotMeUs
4
How is the whistle-blower physician in China different from the whistle-blower here who triggered this impeachment?
The ones in power always try to control the narrative to their own benefit, and to the detriment of the majority.
9
It is interesting to note the number of people commenting on this excellent article which take a gratuitous swipe at President Trump some where in their comment. Why do some people find this necessary? I don’t care for Trump, but this obsession with him is off putting to say the least. This particular problem illustrates the Chinese governments tendency to view every internal problem as a “loss of face.”
4
I noticed the first day I heard about it, last Sunday, I believe, 60 people infected and 1 death, but yesterday, the number was 9000 infected and the deaths were at about 200. I wonder what the actual number is
1
The story tells us the Chinese gov't is controlled at the center even when unforeseen crises appear. No response locally without the Center's ok. Saving face is a particular feature of this. Xi wants to promote the idea of firm control at the center with economic growth that benefits populace as the reward. Its still unclear how harmful this virus will end up being. Or how much this will damage the Communist party's prestige.
1
This is just another scare tactic to keep us frightened and to provide legitimacy for corrupt self serving government.
We need clean water and air. Bridges, roads, airports etc that aren’t failing from neglect.
C’mon. Tens of Thousands die, here, from the old fashioned flu every year because they refuse vaccination. How about an “emergency” to round them up and give them shots?
3
The CCP government has not yet learned from SARS but also pushes the SAR Hong Kong government not distribute surgical masks to Hong Kong people because millions of them have fought for freedom in the past months. It causes Hong Kongers are in high risky while the border connect to mainland still open. Thousands of mainland Chinese flee to the territory for medial care. For the past weeks, Hong Kong medical workers face extreme workload. At the same time, senior line up for masks during mid night. That are the reality in Hong Kong now. I am sorry that the overseas Hong Kongers have to mail masks to save their families and friends. It causes the inconvenience to the people in other countries. All thanks to this communist government with the second economic power.
1
No one wants to take responsibility for anything. Even we Americans get lied to every day by our government. But I have been very impressed how the Chinese are handling it now. They are more prepared than we could ever be. I've been following it and the technology they are using to keep the people informed and how quickly their scientists and medical communities are trying to quell this is amazing. I hope the best for all people.
1
I spent 3 years in Indonesia '63-66 and word was that Cholera had been wiped out by taking away the license of any doctor who reported a case.
5
Not a surprise at all at their initial missteps. China is a totalitarian nation. Truth is far less valued than perception. But let us realize that our own Trump has the same instincts.
2
Gee. This is so surprising, considering that China is one of the world's most open and representative democracies, with complete transparency and a reputation worldwide for probity and rectitude in all its governmental and business dealings. (Or at least that's how America, her businesses, and universities have acted).
4
The WHO is now seen by many people around the world as a “spokesman” and “apologist” for the Chinese government given its recent decisions and statements. With more and more news surfacing on how the Chinese government is not as transparent and forthcoming as the WHO has tried to portrait over the past few weeks, many people now question whether the WHO is making decision based on science or politics, despite the organisation’s own proclamations and calls. The WHO says there is no objective and scientific reasons to limit travel and trade, and in fact opposes it, yet many countries around the world was shutting off their borders to China or Chinese citizens almost as soon as WHO declared the coronavirus as a global health emergency.
Can the WHO be trusted? Is it still an “authority” guided by only and solely by scientific expertise? What role can it still play if its recommendations are shunned by many countries or even mocked by people around the world. Or are people simply fuelled by panic of an unknown virus, and desperate for some visible and concrete measures form their government? Would this undermine the co-ordinated effort required to fight a potential pandemic by the international community? Perhaps the Times could have a take on that.
3
Interesting. But why should this be a surprise? Silencing doctors and denying a public health threat, nor even the acknowing the existence of a potentially deadly pathogen until it impossible to ignore is the standard operating procedure in a nation that does not have high regard for human life, except perhaps for members of the Communist party, nor promotes freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of thought. Wonder how the NBA will react to this, after all, it, and its chief spokesman, LeBron James, publicly defended China's recent Tinamen style actions in Hong Kong. Thank you.
3
As the Corona virus outbreak started in the US, the same would have happened and may be worse. Ask Puerto Rico how well the hurricane was handled. Perhaps the difference is that Trump would be on twitter insulting the virus and throwing paper towels at the CDC staff.
Seems to me that they close the marked quickly, identify the virus quickly, and notify the WHO quickly.
Spend some time to visit some US emergency rooms and you will realize how easy it is for an outbreak to quickly spread.
As far as controlling the narrative, what do you think that Trump and the Republican Party are doing?
2
Why are we surprise about this, the Chinese like any other countries but it's interest first. Why rules aren't put in place that once a new virus appears that it's report to the world and action to quarantine including all air travel out of a country.
It's time to really re-think trade with China, China wants to trade with the world, yet NO country has a peace treaty, NO countries as any arms agreement, while they build the worlds largest army, they fail to follow any trade agreement they sign. China NO a country that wants to work with any other country instead it act like a bully if you don't agree with them. END ALL TRADE WITH THEM, the world got along just fine without them.
2
This will always be the case with China, and their lack of world vision and responsibility, except being ascendant, as Trump orders his priorities, is just what I expect from a totalitarian regime. This is why we must rid ourselves of the scourge of Trump, even if we are encumbered by 1/2 our lawmakers, all Republican who make this even more difficult...again one can look to China and their refusal to tolerate criticism when measuring them as a world power and also when we reflect on what we have wrought by electing Trump. He will be in history the greatest American failure.
1
The news media need to take a deep breath and relax.
Yes, it's fairly viral, but the death rate is low, and most of those dying are elderly, especially those with underlying illness. This is not like the Spanish flue of 1918, with young people dropping left and right.
By running stories on this every day above the (digital) fold you're just panicking people for no good reason. The flu right now is a far greater danger to the average American than the Wuhan corona virus.
Scientists are working on a vaccine as quickly as they can. That's really all we need to know about it for now.
4
@Sixofone : Have we seen a breakdown of fatalities by age yet? I don't recall seeing one. The first death outside of China (in the Philippines) was a 44 year old man.
1
This is a question, not a comment: Since the daily increase in the number of cases is pretty stable (2000 a week) while the total number of cases keeps going up (tripled over the last week) does that mean the percentage of people infected is dropping?
It is so much easier to focus on China's faults than to look at the problems in the United States.
1
I’d like to know more about our own response to this virus. For instance, why did the State Department have one chartered plane to take Americans out of Wuhan province and not more? How were those passengers chosen? Why are they under quarantine while all the people who arrived here on commercial flights are not?
1
Blind obedience and fear of government retaliation lead to this.
There is much to think about when the present US administration forbids agencies to talk about climate change, allows to dismiss scientific data on water and air to approve pipelines, sharpies the trajectory of a hurricane, and raises distrust on news by calling bearers of facts fake news.
The first goal of a corrupt system is to protect itself at all costs, no matter the consequences. This lead to this global outbreak that will possibly kill tens of thousands. Climate change is the US coronavirus. It is denied by a corrupt administration, despite all evidence and against all logic. How big will be toll this time?
The global socio-economic context here is that the UN, influenced by global finance tied to large pharmaceutical interests, has installed a coordinated and institutionalized pandemic-phobia response structure, always eager to detect and disproportionately respond to each purported nucleus of a new lethal flu pandemic.
The said global-finance interests also control major media networks, and are always happy to inflate pandemic phobia. Furthermore, the USA’s largest perceived threat in the present era is the rise and integration of Eurasia, economically driven by China. Therefore, coronavirus alarmism is also a geopolitical campaign opportunity to demean and isolate China; in effect, a weaponized hysteria that creates racist responses in many Western centers. Domestic anti-Chinese racism can be politically exploited in the USA to support aggressive policies against China, including protectionist policies limiting educational and economic exchanges.
However, I don’t think the Trump trade deals can be significantly affected by the coronavirus media frenzy: The so-called trade deals (coerced trade “balancing”) are a forcefully imposed life-line for the diminishing USA economy, which also eyes a horizon of loss of the USA dollar as the global currency.
1
Japan doesn't stop flights from China. Many Chinese tourists are still in Japan. Many Japanese people are trying to protect themselves, but there is already no masks to buy. And the WHO is really late to announce the danger of the virus, making people angry in Japan.
3
It's great that we're dramatically curtailing flights between the U.S. and China and quarantining people citizens and legal residents who return from China.
However, there are other countries -- like the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia and Indonesia -- that aren't being as strict about this virus. Shouldn't we be applying the same travel restrictions and quarantine rules to them? If we wait until they are in full-on outbreak mode (as China did with its month of silence), it may be too late.
If you're curious about what's happening with these other countries, here's another article in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/world/asia/china-coronavirus-philippines-thailand.html
4
Nothing new. The health care providers in the U.S. recently did the same, as reported in the New York Times.
It’s important to note, whether state-controlled or privatized medicine, the results are often the same. Companies, state actors, and individuals are tempted to hide the truth, and they do. There are legitimate reasons to fear the public.
The cost of scapegoating, professional embarrassment, loss of public trust, personal and organizational liability, litigation, compensation for damages, and changes to existing practices impact people in very personal ways.
When problems are discovered, it’s highly probable changes to existing policies and protocols (money, labor, equipment) will follow. The time it takes to deliver health care increases administratively and operationally. These changes appear as “bad actors” fighting against the “cost-quality-speed” models of “good actors” who sell products and services improvements. Who can be believed?
We need to rethink the means and constraints by which health care is provided. It’s not a matter of choosing between corporate or state providers.
1
The Democratic party's current candidates could do us all a favour and start talking about this issue, especially the firing of the pandemic response team in 2018 (according to a poster's comments below).
2
“Projecting optimism and confidence, if you don’t have the data, is a very dangerous strategy,” said Alexandra Phelan, a faculty research instructor in the department of microbiology and immunology at Georgetown University.
“It undermines the legitimacy of the government in messaging,” she added. “And public health is dependent on public trust.”
Here, in the US, the public has no trust in the government officials after reports of Trump changing NOAA hurricane forecasts and then, after getting it wrong, he forced the agency to make a statement that THEY were wrong. Sorry, I don’t trust this administration when it comes to public health.
You'd think the Chinese leadership might have learned a lesson from Boeing executives dealing with the 737 Max - yes, let's cover up and ignore revealed problems with possibly fatal consequences. That always work, doesn't it?
This is how things look when you cannot hold government accountable.
Our future?
2
In 2018 Trump disbanded our medical team that handles medical emergencies like the one facing China and the world right now.
4
The time line of the spread indicates the authorities knew a SARS like disease was spreading from Wuhan 2 weeks before Chinese New Year, in mid-December, and lock down the whole city with tens of millions. Dr. Li warned people at the end of December, after the contagion was identified and publicized by the authorities to the world.
If anything, they may have over reacted. Lets not accuse Beijing of secrecy in this particular case!
1
Chinese authorities punish medical professionals who signal early warnings.
Trump forces NOAA professionals to alter official forecast of path of Hurricane Dorian.
3
Perhaps the NYT has statistics on this, but for me it's just a generalization: it seems that the Chinese government has, increasingly under Xi's tenure, weaponized "spreading rumors" in the courts as a tool to punish anyone that threatens social stability (i.e. CCP legitimacy).
They'll invariably blame local officials in Wuhan (they already have), but the response would have been the same almost anywhere in the country. The rot doesn't just run deep - - it's state-mandated.
The disinformation campaign promoted by the Chinese Government is where WE are headed with the Dictatorial, Alternative Facts, Trump Administration. We can stop this madness in its tracks now if enough people demand that truth overtake propaganda.
Based on their history, It was expected that the Communist Chinese government was lying about the extent of the illness. The lives lost will be exponentially more because of this.
1
The U.S. has plenty of its own "bad habits" to deal with and can hardly point fingers at the failures of the Chinese government for this current (unfortunate yet inevitable) situation. It's precious that the media coverage is throwing stones. Look at your own back yard. the U.S.: a country that ignored the AIDS crisis, a country that doesn't have a health care system that serves all of its citizens, a country where women's health care is being attacked, where a bunch of know-nothings are "anti-vac," and a country where the current leadership is hardly the champion of science, research and public health.
I hate to write this, but here goes: concerns about the coronavirus are warranted, but the risk is being blown way out of proportion. It's a flu virus and there are 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually in the U.S. alone from the seasonal flu. 26,000 die due to lack of health care coverage. And, let's not talk about gun deaths (oh, the current government doesn't even want to study that problem). Americans have their own set of bad habits they should worry about before throwing stones.
1
The Chinese government has a history of constantly lying, be it about appropriating (stealing) intellectual property, human rights violations or reporting of GDP growth. This is just a further example of their trying to change the narrative (the truth), however, you cannot hide the dead and the virus does not just cling to poor peasants, it will also take down "administrators".
1
I'm discouraged, though not surprised, to see the many references to US politics in these comments so far.
Anyone who knows -- to the extent we can know in their opacity -- how the Communist dictatorship works in China, will be very pleased at the ugly state of affairs we have in the US. We don't have a dictator, though his haters like to refer to him like that. And we don't have oppressive totalitarians who want to stifle voices, though both sides accuse the others of being them.
Our ugly, messy democracy is alive and very well. We are in the midst of ructions we've caused ourselves, but we're using the democratic tools people much more wise than our current leaders gave us 200+ years ago to fight it out.
The dictators in Beijing, Moscow, Teheran, and elsewhere are the real deals, very bad people who oppress and kill to stifle any dissent, let alone the very alive dissent we have today.
Making comparisons between the very bad guys in these places and the Americans in the US who are fighting tooth and nail over domestic politics is ludicrous and makes it harder to ultimately work through our own disputes. All we do with our own internecine brawls is help the kind of people this article is about. Time to stop that, on both sides. On both sides.
3
Sadly, if this were to come out of Somalia, for example, perhaps fewer people would give a toss.
But the world has come to depend upon cheap Chinese trinkets and items made at slave labour wages there under a dictatorship. Cannot speak for America but here in Canada our dollar/loonie bin stores truly could not stay in business without these cheap Chinese import/landfill trinkets.
Perhaps demanding that China take prudent stances regarding seamless, quality health care for its people and open monitoring of same, before further trade with their partners returns, is in order.
Personally, our world needs a break. I know I do. One hears that what does not kill us makes us stronger, but for pity's sake, the world is already dealing with 'dumb as a dicky bird' Trump, climate change, cost of living, etc. Sometimes I feel I am coming to the end of my tether with these items of worry. Perhaps others feel the same.
4
Gee it sounds nearly as horrible as lying to the public about lead in the water causing irreversible brain damage. Or Love Canal, nuclear contamination, or a thousand other public health disasters the US government and big business lied about, abetted, and covered up. And we're supposed to be indignant at the Chinese? God help us when there is an outbreak of something in the US. Does anyone think the US government could build two 1000-patient hospitals in a week like the Chinese just did? Not a chance. Sure the Chinese regime is brutal, cruel, bureaucratic, etc. but it's in close competition with Washington.
1
People with no understanding are ready to criticize a different cultural and linguistic context they have not even cursory familiarity with, based on how things are done in their home country. It is true we analogize and listen to deep thoughts to understand others. But when we are telling some authorities to do something, we need to be careful
It is not surprising that the authoritarian China hides and underlays the risks involved with many of the crises originating from there including the one related to the coronavirus, but what about the US where the entire Trump administration is engaged in shameless denial of science specially the climate change threat or rolling back various environmental regulations that jeopardise the quality even existence of the planetary life? Forget its constitutional coup and the open war on impeachment.
2
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. [General Assembly of the United Nations. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”]
1
I am compelled to compliment the photographs with this story. They are first rate.
2
China can never, ever, ever be trusted and don't forget it. If it is determined this outbreak is due to an escape of a weaponized virus out of China lab then this will confirm what many have feared. Recall the human cloning experiment that ran amok in China last year ? Only after the Chinese got caught red-handed did they fess up to that wretched affair.
2
That secrecy reminds me of the '80s, when AIDS was not discussed.
It was a bad time, people and government, avoiding a crisis.
2
And we think it would have been different here. American Airline pilots had to sue their own company to get them to stop continuing to fly to China. Don’t I remember people going to court to avoid being quarantined during the Ebola crisis. In my town three people died within five miles of me last year from Hepatitis A and the state Health Department said wash your hands. They didn’t even investigate.
I can't help but think of the Soviet/Russian national government's bumbling and cover-ups after the big nuclear accident at Chernobyl.
This situation in China as well as the one in the Soviet Union illustrate what happens when you have an unfettered ruler dominating the national government through his loyalists as well as dominating the state/province and city governments.
This is where we in the United States are headed folks. Buckle your seat belts. We, too, are in for a rough ride.
2
My brother in law, who is from Taiwan but lives half the year in California, called my wife yesterday morning asking my wife if she could buy some masks as they’re unavailable in California. We looked around here and they’re all sold out. Moreover, online, people are asking for high prices. Panic is setting in.
81
@Brad
I wonder how many of those people who are buying the masks have bothered to get their flu vaccines.
The risk of developing flu in the U.S. and dying from it is thousands of times higher than the number of people even in Wuhan who have developed coronavirus and died from it.
Perhaps The Times and other news organizations can run daily body counts between the two diseases to show how ignorant Americans are about what they really are at risk from. I'll bet many would be amazed by the comparisons.
26
@Brad
Taiwan isn't in China either and no one who has visited Taiwan is being banned from flying into other countries as the Chinese are.
Getting masks in Taiwan is easy the government is making sure of that. The post office also stopped thousands of boxes of masks from being shipped overseas and people who tried to sell them overseas may be prosecuted.
7
@Brad -- The CDC recommends washing your hands as the best defense against any virus, not a mask. Germs are spread on surfaces, and whatever you touch that someone else has touched could have germs.
12
So far we have not heard the number of persons diagnosed with the virus who have recovered. So far, many thousand cases confirmed, so far many hundred deaths. When will we learn the recovery rate?
Early detection and isolation is not enough. The media would salve public anxiety if we knew that treatment and care will lessen the impact. Further it cannot be stressed enough that vaccination once available should be mandatory.
8
Mandatory immunization? The 2020 flu season has already caused 10,000 deaths & 180,000 hospitalizations. AND yet the immunization rate is only 43.5 for adults & 63 percent for children.
1
Johns Hopkins has rested a dashboard that tracks the disease including number of recovered. It was 348 this morning.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
1
"On the last day of 2019, after Dr. Li’s message was shared outside the group, the authorities focused on controlling the narrative. The police announced that they were investigating eight people for spreading rumors about the outbreak."
When I reached that statement in the article, it took my breath away. The chilling similarity of the reaction of those local Chinese authorities to the reactions of the current U.S. president when he's confronted with an "inconvenient truth" is both astounding and profoundly unsettling.
38
People just don't get the scale of this problem. it isn't the flu. it isn't like the flu. The flu virus dies from fever and antibodies even without treatment. The flu has treatments like tamaflu. The flu has vaccines to prevent it. Coronavirus may never die. it can recur and flair up like herpes. a flair up in the lungs is atypical pneumonia. if you aren't strong enough, you die from pneumonia. This version of Coronavirus spreads easily and is spreading exponentially. Far more people than known already have it because the gestation period is several days before you experience symptoms. so eventually everyone gets it and as we age, we weaken, and so eventually we die from pneumonia. it probably means human life expectancy just dropped by 10-15 years if we don't develop treatments and vaccines.
25
@Irish
Where did you get the information that the virus goes dormant and then flair up again?
@Irish
It has a 1% mortality rate. Calm down.
We know how the Chinese government handles such crises -- cloaked in secrecy and putting communist ideology over its people. No surprises there.
Is Times planning a continuing coverage on what is our government's plan to this emergency? That's what I am more interested in.
I hope there is more to our plan than just stopping flights coming from China.
19
@Bhaskar Exactly! Plans prevent panic. Where is the plan for the US?
2
I’m sure our stunted leader and his only-the-best people are right on it.
In part, yes the political situation and extensive censorship in China contributed to the spreading of the virus. In part, and in my opinion the greater part, it was due to human nature, something we share too. If any of us had been confronted with similar scenarios, would be have immediately ordered a city lockdown, as we perhaps like to think? Or would we have convinced ourselves of the best case scenario, not wanting to see the extent of the issue until it became impossible to be in denial about? I think it is important to be more realistic about how humans respond to such issues and not use this tragedy as a political critic....
11
This story defines journalism. We are fortunate to have The Times looking out for the interests of all people. And I am particularly impressed by the army of Chines staff researchers who are credited at the end of the story. Well done.
28
All of this timeline information has been circulating on the Chinese social media openly for at least a week.
1
China for decades has been cheating on trade, pumps more toxins into the air than any other country and is woefully behind developed nations in public safety, and their growing middle class is demanding more from their leaders. Trump is proving the most effective president in decades addressing trade by going after them where it counts: exports. This virus debacle will hopefully get Chinese citizens to demand changes to their food and health practices.
27
When you read about the reaction of the Chinese authorities you cannot but associate it to the reaction the soviets had during the Chernobyl disaster. For the communist regime the image (of communism) to the outside world is more important not just than the public interest put also than reality. That policy is strictly followed until the disaster is obvious and nearly inevitable.
39
What are the chances of this virus hitching a ride on the multitude of products shipped fom China to the rest of the world? Is stopping passenger flights sufficient to curtail the spread of this disease or do cargo shipments by air, rail, and water also need to be restricted?
30
It’s already global.
Bacteria won’t live on objects for long
I am dismayed by the lack of understanding displayed by the headline, article and comments as to the difference between local and federal government. We say “China” but the examples and interviews in the article are about local response in one province in the early days of the epidemic. This has apparently opened all doors for people to air out any and all grievances about a whole country, instead of highlighting the real story- a striking insecurity and lack of trust on the local level in fear of higher powers in the Chinese central government.
I am holding any praise for how they are managing this epidemic, as the dust has yet to settle, but the central government’s extreme push toward quarantine and hospital-building honestly seems to be as much as any government in this situation can do.
12
@SY : The speed with which they are getting that hospital up suggests the plan was in the works *before* they made any public announcements of the threat. The Chinese government clearly saw an epidemic brewing and kept silent, even if they were preparing behind the scenes.
9
Vigilance and awareness of racism is important, but you do realize China would treat Americans exactly how they treat Tibetans and Uighurs if they could, right? Acknowledging China wants to become the sole superpower of the world and spread their brutal, fear-based dictatorship throughout the world makes China our enemy, not something we are doing to China. If you love freedom, you’ll focus on protecting democracy, which allows us the luxury of valuing racial justice.
1
@SY DO you think the WUhan and Hubei authorities did not inform the central government?
This is what typically happens in undemocratic societies where political power is concentrated at the very top and the truth is not allowed to surface where corrective actions could have taken place in a more timely, organized, and effective manner. And given Trump's peculiar affection for dictatorships, our democracy has been under stress where real facts and policies are being hidden from public view. These are strange times indeed.
50
@Mike B. - The excellent English-language daily newspaper The South China Morning Post began publishing articles in late December about the "pneumonia-like" illness among the people of Wuhan. I read this paper on-line and learned about the unfolding of this epidemic - first thoughts were that it came from a virus from a pork market. We all now know much more about the epidemiology. Read The New York Times, of course, but use the Web to get first-hand stories internationally. Mike B, another reason to support democratic systems in Hong Kong is because this city is a vital international friend and link to us.
4
China is not an Open Society. The idea of Open Society originated by Aspasia married to Athenian politician Pericles:
“Our city is thrown open to the world… free to live exactly as we please, and yet, we are always ready to face any danger.... although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it. We do not look upon discussion as a stumbling block in the way of political action, but as an indispensable preliminary to acting wisely.”
Debate is crucial for advancing understanding. Debating with oneself is indispensable, but debating with others enables one to go where none thought of.
Instead in a dictatorship, few decide; maximal potential brain power is reduced, or minute. Actually it’s the multi-debating aspect of Western Europe which enabled most of the advancement of civilization in the last millennium. China, which used to be very advanced scientifically and technologically missed the debating aspect, motivated by mighty intellectual passions. This is the main problem of Confucius philosophy, which views the respect of one’s “station” in life, the most important feature of society. Hence Confucius is most compatible with Xi’s regime.
Whereas intellectual debate and its descendants, in particular scientific, medical and technological advancement, are the exact opposite: they respect only truth, and, more generally, the search thereof. To equal the West, China will have to accept to see truths be hurled, and love thereof, be hurled around.
14
@Patrice Ayme - - - There actually is an Open Society Foundation, and I am convinced that the sort of national government imagined & hoped for by that group lines up perfectly well with the reality of modern China.
1
@L osservatore Thank you, I didn't remember that there was such a Foundation. Are you saying that today's modern China is exactly what the Open Society Foundation "imagined and hoped for"?
I beg to disagree with the notion that China is as an Open Society as. say California. There yours truly apparently was able to get the mayor of a large city to resign because an Open Letter, in the last two weeks, making some allegations of corruption. I don't think that could happen so smoothly in China.
A case in point is top officials with much better masks than the doctors they are visiting. The news of these outrage are circulating, right, but not as much as they would in the West.
Science is a great way to gain understanding of phenomena that is a mystery. But it requires being open and exposed to other’s reactions to ones efforts to understand. Trust and generous sharing are virtues in science. Secrecy prevents this and can even lead to pursuing efforts that prove futile and which might have been avoided. Paranoid systems like China’s end up being second or third rate when it comes to science, generally. China’s secrecy about diseases like this one wastes time and costs lives.
10
Secrecy? History repeats itself. When SARs broke out, the Internet was getting established. Social, political, and cultural entrepreneurs in the West were pleased in assuming the Internet would "democratize" China and the Chinese people would find gradual convergence with the West. The democratizing technology would loosen the Party's grip. As Net activity exploded with the SARs panic, all kinds of views went viral. Nothing "official" emerged. The people were in panic. As was the Party. Nobody had reliable information. But the massive proliferation of Net access for the Chinese population--mainly in urban areas that had Internet Cafes--revealed a fundamental reality: the Party had lost control over the population's discourse--grounds for authoritarian panic. What happened? The Party began to systematically shut down Internet Cafes. The excuse? Youth corruption via pornography and video games. Cafe's were dangerous, not hygiene. But the real reason was to establish authoritarian control. The Internet would return but only after well-established FIREWALLS.. Now the Party has control. The paralysis of silence -- for purposes of dealing with Party unease--is what the silencing strategies signify. A genuine public sphere is what the Party struggles to prevent. Public discourse and global health clash with Party preservation, a a worldly visible and sad contradiction.
20
@Telly55 im sorry to point out but it's pretty ridiculous that one might think Chinese government banned net cafes for keep people silent. even 9 guys agree. in my memory,china did ban the net cafes when i was in middle school(about 2008), and that was the time this policy in its strictest , but at that time even in small town we have PCs in our home and even now they dont allow high school students go there because that IS necessary, since netcafe is not a good place for young people. And for the situation of Internet cafes, the Chinese government is also doing something. Now you need to be an adult and have an ID card to get into the Internet cafe.,which also shows that the policy is not designed to deny people's freedom of expression and the right to know. And today's media and online opinion show that people in China are becoming more and more aware that we did demonize the internet and video games.
though its common in you guys that you think China need democratization, but im still a little upset.you dont konw us,like i point out above.so we might need to be improved,but not by you. let me tell you what will change in you if you grow up in china, you will lose nothing except from knowing less about what the American media wants you to know and being less arrogant(standing on the high ground of democracy).
Not surprised that the Chinese government behaved this way. My concern is with our government, this administration does not give one confidence they will respond for the good of its citizens. Look at Puerto Rico, did they help there? Look at Ca fires- they helped Russian fire fighters. At what point do Republican constituents hold their president accountable? Hope "all the best people" are addressing the problem and not just spinning about it.
36
It was very useful to see this complete timeline. The lesson is not just for China. Public officials often believe that their primary responsibility is to reassure the public, to prevent panic, until it is clear that action is warranted. We saw this after 9/11 when EPA head Christie Todd Whitman, based on no real evidence, declared that the air at ground-zero was safe to breathe. Public officials need to learn this lesson; resist the urge to reassure, and instead act as quickly as possible to shed light on the situation in order to provide useful information to the public.
38
When you have people the world over still foraging for and eating bushmeat, you have the recipe for a global disaster. Add in the ease with which we hop a plane and travel the world over, the speed of the contagion is staggering.
This could and will happen anywhere. Parts of the world are experiencing glacier melt and warmer than normal weather. We have no idea what viruses we're unleashing this way.
We're responsible for this problem. All of us. We need to realize and accept this and take drastic measures to protect the population of the world. We must work together, across all geo-political boundaries.
If we put our heads in the sand, if we refuse to work together, a disaster of monumental proportions is just around the corner. And, the culling will begin.
50
@Pamela L Why don’t you remind Trump and the Republican Party about global warming?
1
I had a bad feeling about this because I don't trust China. Then, two days into this news I read a social media post of one of the people I follow, who happens to be Chinese living in the U.S. He posted that the virus is much bigger than being reported, that the cases were in the thousands, not dozens (which was being reported at the time). I fully believed him. Now, look where we're at. This scares me more because I knew they weren't taking proper precautions from the start and now it is going to be hitting college campuses. My closest friends work on a college campus. This will spread everywhere because proper precautions were not taken. They should have isolated the infected, in place, at once.
30
To the authors of this detailed reporting, thank you. It is reckless on the part of leaders and government in China to have suppressed information. The whole world is impacted. This is a lesson for us as well. Reading this report, we see weakness or the lack of proper rules and guidelines on hygiene and sanitation. This is a matter that requires urgent intervention by a world body, such as the UN to have China address and correct the drawbacks. If China has to deal with the outside world, they have to play by the rules, and insure proper implementation and necessary follow up.
22
I'd like to see a detailed map and death toll of the average Flu season or pneumonia compared to this. (hint*it kills more people)
We live in an age of too much information.
Anxiety. Anxiety. Anxiety. Over things you can't control.
Even governments are now victim to the perils knowing too much and looking good on social media.
21
@Ignatius J. Reilly Yes, the aggregate number of flu deaths is far, far higher, but this new virus has a mortality rate of 2% which is far, far higher than the common strains of flu.
3
@Ignatius J. Reilly Yes. And then there is HIV. According to the World Health Organization, since the beginning of the epidemic, 75 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and about 32 million people have died.
This novel and deadly coronavirus has a death rate of 2%. Not in the same league, although of course a disaster for those afflicted.
@Ignatius J. Reilly
Another hint: garden variety flu kills many fewer people as a percentage of those infected than this coronavirus is.
Can't have too much information about something like this. It's the misinformation that's harmful.
3
This is an outstanding example of what happens when politicians and political considerations override scientific evidence and public health priorities.
But please pay attention: this is NOT unique to China!
125
@Eddy
Exactly! It's going on right in plain sight , here in the good old USA.
1
I have been to India 7 times, and unlike China, has no infrastructure or facilities to respond once this is unleashed there. It is not if, it is when.
I have listened to enough doctors and epidemioligists to sense that that the contagiousness of this particular strain is like nothing the world has ever seen. And , like unwitting agents of doom , the airline industry could be brought to its knees. The best planes recirculate 50% of the air, and it goes down from there. If air travel is brought to a halt worldwide, this will have a ripple effect on economies and business that will result in worldwide catastrophe, even, though the death ratio for this unusual virus seems to be a quarter of what it was with SARS. If millions of people get it, there is no telling what might transpire. Doesn't it make you feel warm and fuzzy that we have Donald Trump to guide us through this mess in the US?
114
The difference is that Indians are exposed from birth to an astounding density and variety of pathogens, resulting in a highly-primed immune system from childhood on.
Combine that strong selective pressure with several millennia of traditionally high fertility and infant mortality, as well as extensive mixing of genomes.
The average Indian lives on a comparatively meager, typically vegan diet, performing strenuous manual labor in an inhospitable climate, with a daily viral load that would incapacitate a planeload of westerners.
In contrast, China is a population monoculture - genomically and otherwise.
Recent and rapid urbanization has further weakened immunity by minimizing contact with the natural environment.
China also has a very high rate of tobacco use, which in middle age and later significantly raises risk of respiratory infection. Any numbers on tobacco use within the infected population?
16
@Mikhail brilliant response , as the WHO has declared Delhis air at 13 times over the accepted limit of particulate matter cutting the lives of everyone by 3 years It IS horrible already, tobacco just exacerbates it.
1
@peapodesque
The immune systems of the average Indian will take this virus and laugh at it. They don't swim in the Ganges for nothin.
But seriously, my bigger point? Some people are walking away from this as if it was just a mild flu.
It's all about your immune system baby. Always has been, always will be. You either got it or you don't. Just like the bats that live with it.
Many of us are the ancestors of the survivors of the Plague you might be reminded.
4
If this had happened in the us- would the authorities have the capability of isolating a city of 11 million people? Say Chicago? Would the government be able to stop trains, planes and automobiles carrying people from leaving the city? Would people listen to the government and shelter in place to prevent the spread of the virus or would they think- stuff that- I’m out of here. It’s an interesting hypothesis and fruit for consideration Re options if a disease of this nature (and it’s current mortality is less than the annual flu virus) were to occur in the USA.
44
Dear NYT, may I object to this headline? Secrecy and the use of fear are features of authoritarian, unelected regimes - they are not ‘habits.’ The corrective mechanisms and crucial transparency that largely come into play in democracies during crises are absent in undemocracric countries like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and many others. Here in Australia, the response to the bushfire crisis has been diametrically opposite, because of a free press, the need of elected politicians to retain their seats at the next election, and public action without fear of being targeted by rulers. We used to be able to state these distinctions unambiguously about the Soviet Bloc. Now, the language of the press has become muddled and effete in a culture saturated with the fear of appearing politically incorrrect when discussing authoritarian regimes. This is a big loss, as it’s a reflection of a loss within us that we need to understand before it completely eats away at our ability to be strong in the face of things that we used to have no doubt need to be resisted.
53
@SD
I am horrified by the bushfires in Australia. But from what I see, the politicians in Canberra are still in denial about the basics of fossil fuel consumption and the effects on climate that continued coal and gas production have. Merely being a democracy doesn’t guarantee that the government will actually work in the interests of the people. Sort of like here.
69
@Dan Democracies always have a high probability of change in the direction of public will. The change may not always occur at the pace some/many of us desire, but you can be certain that inflexible politicians will eventually get booted out. Under an authoritarian regime, however, there is near certainty that any expression of public desire for change will result in more authoritarianism and control - people have virtually no influence over such a regime. The 'loss inside us' that I speak of above is our ability to recall this truth that we used to know so well.
JL Borges believed that our primal urge is to have no government at all. But that creates an unbearable set of problems. All forms of government are prone to exert control over our lives, but democracy the least so. It's the best of the evils of mass control.
We seem to have started torpedoing democracy itself in our age because we can all 'hear' the views of everyone else all the time - not just those of our neighbours and friends and a few others - and this realisation that so many others have views so unlike ours triggers in us a reflexive reaction: everyone else (or at least most of 'em) but us are being manipulated! So democracy is bunk!
Sadly, I'm not very sanguine about our chances of not sinking ourselves. And this time around, our public stoning to death of democracy will be watched gleefully from not-so-far away by the masters of that other form of government. And yes, I say 'masters' deliberately here.
3
Thank you to the NYTImes for once again great reporting. Along with the Chinese government failing to identify and report on this disease when it was, perhaps, still containable, I fault WHO for not acting sooner rather than later. As always, as cited, there are "economic ramifications" to be considered....as opposed to human lives.
Just an aside, years ago on my first trip to China I told my guide I wanted to visit the night markets. He said OK, do so, but DO NOT EAT ANYTHING...and after visiting I understood why.
47
Swine flu originated in the US, infected up to 21% of the global community, and killed around 550,000 people. The failure of the US to aggressively tackle the disease in the early stages is one factor that contributed to this toll.
While China’s response has not been perfect, it has nonetheless done far more than any other country has in history to tackle a virus at this stage. Perhaps we should thank the Chinese and provide assistance & encouragement instead of throwing rocks for every real and perceived stuff up.
91
@Rob It was more like 17,000 world wide and H1N1 originated in humans in Central Mexico not the U.S..
11
@Rob, okie dokie, but swine flu originated in Mexico.
2
@Rob yeah... No.
Read the NEJM https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316. They knew in December it's big trouble. Instead of being open and warning the public, they arrested the doctors who sent out the early warning.
They even held a potluck banquet for over 40,000 families in Wuhan downtown! A few days before the quarantine!!! That's not "inaction." That's murder.
The virus spread to so many other countries because many travelers didn't even know they're at risks. Before the quarantine, as many as 5 millions (!!) already left Wuhan, carrying the virus with them to every corner of China. I fail to see how effectively the quarantine can be when 1 in 3 got out.
There is very little for which to praise Chinese government in this fiasco.
p.s. In case some still haven't realized: the number of infected and the death toll may be 10 times higher. The hospitals reached the breaking point and simply turned away patients because they didn't have the capacity nor resources to treat those patients.
2
I was in New York Medical College studying for an MPH in the early 1980s during the height of the 'Gay Disease'. Managing information and monitoring media response to an unknown pathogen is both difficult and necessary. Biological science and epidemiology take time and are difficult to effectively communicate to the public. U.S. media coverage and political posturing during the early years of HIV was certainly problematic.
China's response to the current virus is certainly flawed, but not in the least surprising or unprecedented in similar public health challenges.
23
Our own political parties and our own newspapers are not admitting that this coronavirus is a pan endemic involving the world not China alone. China moved into quarantine all citizens in the city were the illness started and the quarantine is quite humane and the doctors are educating now and if they did not start immediately to talk- they are doing the right thing now. In the quarantine the people can only go out of their apartments with a mask for breathing to buy groceries at certain times. The World Health organization has commended China how they are organizing.
Meanwhile the political leaders of Washington DC they are forgetting or not willing to discuss the possible pan epidemic.
Question: who trusts Trump at such a problem? We are looking for a leader who listens well, reads well, welcomes several different solutions and has respect for science.
Mike Bloomberg has delt several rounds of managing a city several billion size big and he has managed well. Don't turn him off because he is a billionaire - but welcome the money as it will be needed to beat Trump especially since he know Trump he will beat him.
Can you vision Trump figuring out quarantine - him who could not manage the southern US border .
35
Good article! I am reflecting on 2009 H1N1 Pandemic which was first detected in the U.S. and finally killed over 12 thousand American people and over 210 thousand people worldwide.
Even in a democratic system, should our government have done a better job to contain the virus and reduced the staggering fatality? Corrupted Bureaucracy could be as lethal as the virus.
9
We should view this story as allegory for where we, the US and the rest of the workd are headed as the populist, autocratic wave takes hold. What may seem as inconceivable behavior from the Chinese government may actually not be too far away for us at all. After all, if the US Senate has chosen to hide the truth about a corrupt POTUS from the people, does our government reasonably hold higher ground when it comes to truthful narratives?
45
@Zion Babylon:
Thanks to the utterly unconscionable, absolutely inane actions by the GOP in the Senate our government has abdicated any and all claims to noble, wise, and -- above all -- ethics.
The situation in China, while in its details resembles the Senate (lethal virus outbreak, versus Republican toxic, pathological partizan politics), at least the Chinese -- albiet belatedly -- are truly taking vital steps for the common good for both themselves as well a the world.
Nothing remotely so noble and vital can be attributed to the modern, pathetic GOP sycophants.
Sad. Bigly sad.
1
What can shut down a country like China and bring it to its knees? Is it tariffs? Is it human rights violations? Is it suppression of free speech? No! It is a disease outbreak with no cure or vaccine. Political leaders globally ignore public health and communicable diseases at their peril.
America has a Prevention and Public Health fund as part of the ACA, originally slated for $2 billion. It is now less than half that amount and most of the public health programs are zeroed out in Trump's budget proposal. We spend only spend only 1-2% of health care dollars on prevention and public health. The rest is spent supporting our overly bureaucratic and dysfunctional health care system. So is America ready for something like a coronavirus? Sadly, the answer is too obvious.
38
Thank you for this very informative, well written article.
"We didn't know..." is a slippery slope when it comes to public health. "We knew but we didn't tell you..." can become an avalanche.
5
@Abby: worse still, such deliberate denials amount to suicide, of not deliberate homicide.
Wuhan, love the town, lived there once, but the accusation should be aimed much higher.
China is a decomposed entity with much of the motive force concentrated at the regional level as is its corruption. But who advances up through the system is always decided by those above often at the next level.
In recent years that peck order greatly tightened, stating in 2012 and Wuhan not the first example – “…should I disturb the Boss? “
Not a uniquely Chinese problem, and in China’s defense the unsanitary conditions that fed this virus have been regulated in the hundreds of thousands on markets across the land by the FDA equivalent in the country since the days of SARS.
4
@wsmrer
I would rewrite the implied criticism here of local authorities based on the comment by RM
Colorado I hope all see below.
It is a shame the Chinese made mistakes, but come on, they did amazing work, notified the WHO, published the sequence, sealed a city and now we have a chance to keep it under control. They have been publishing articles telling us so much information. Thank you Chinese health care workers and scientists!!
41
Let's put aside politics for a little while.
I was curious what the standard procedures are in the US if a doctor finds what s/he considers as a mysterious and potentially highly contagious disease? To put the information on the social media first or to report to the CDC or other agencies or hospitals to further investigate the disease?
Here are the timelines for the events, according to the article.
On 12/30, Dr. Li shared his story in his social media among his friends. He received warnings from City health officials on the same day and then from police 3 days later.
On 12/31, the Chinese national health authorities notified WHO's Beijing office of possible outbreak.
On 1/1, Wuhan local government and health officials closed the market.
On 1/7, Chinese scientists determined the genetic makeup of the virus and shared it with scientific community worldwide.
On 1/18, the central government sent Dr. Zhong to Wuhan to further assess the situation.
On 1/20, Dr. Zhong made open announcement on national TV about the disease.
On 1/23, Wuhan city started its lockdown. ...
You may say that the government and health officals could have done better here or there, but considering the sensitivity of the issue, I am not sure whether I would call the responses as a failure or a coverup (put aside the politics).
24
@RM
Would you expect Times reporters and editors to assess such information and include in analysis?
Why is anyone surprised by this? Isn’t this what they do every time a disease breaks out there?
6
I really love my friends and co-workers from China and Asia in general. But, there is a profound cultural difference that manifests itself in less open communications, less directness that in some situations is beneficial for the social order, and in situations like this, potentially disastrous. I would be over simplifying by saying that it is related to the notion of "saving face" but I can't think of a better way of putting it to people who may not be as close the the Asian mindset. It is not really productive, in my opinion. to try to cast this as some kind of Chinese government repression in an overt sense, but ultimately, that is how the culture expresses itself.
26
@AZDave:
"Saving face" is simply and purely an attempt to minimize SHAME, which is orders of magnitude more toxic than guilt.
Shame is utterly debilitating and destructive. Guilt is how we learn lessons from mistakes.
The use of "Saving Face" is a pathetic -- and pathological -- attempt to avoid dealing with with the reality at hand, whatever that may be.
In the Modern World there's no place for "Saving Face" -- not if we're called to be honest about our conditions and circumstances, particularly when such ego-centered denials have lethal consequences to the innocents.
If the Chinese communists were as adept at responding to medical emergency and saving lives as they are at censoring information and hiding the truth, China would be an admirable country instead of the danger to the world that it has become.
31
@Michael George
This virus started in one locale anmong millions all regulated at some level by their FDA. A local official not knowing what to do decides to wait it out.
Is China an more a danger to the world than Washington D.C. under existing conditions?
Question answers its self.
This is not "news" -- this is all we should expect, and, more to the point - all China's own population expects from their government.
15
There's a video that was confiscated by the Chinese police, taken by a Chinese citizen, of what is really happening inside the hospital. It was taken without the communist governments permission . The guy was allowed to keep his cellphone and has taken photos of what's happening inside the hospital.
Apparently there's a hunt on to find the first person who contacted the virus as they need them so as to find a new vaccine to get rid of the virus. Good luck with that! When this first started there were reliable reports coming out of China that the government was secretly cremating bodies.
8
@CK : This doesn't make sense. Tracking the first known person to contract the disease makes sense from a public health perspective, to better understand where it came from and how fast it's spreading.
But to develop an effective vaccine, you do not need to find the first infected person. You do need to isolate and identify the virus, but that can be done with any infected person.
1
Our politicians do the same to our scientists. Physician heal thyself.
15
I love and forgive China.
1
If the Chinese don’t want to be embarrassed, they should clean up these food markets that sell bats, cats, and dogs. It’s time to move past the fifth century!
48
What they should have done is borrowed a move from Trump, and started building up a war with Iran to take everybody's attention away from it.
22
Let us walk away from the embarrassing political gamble of the Chinese authorities and ask China how can the world help to prevent the invasive spread of the Corona virus.
Now that the world is petrified that going to China would be a dangerous self endangerment and it will be I predict at least 6 months before China can declare itself free of the Wuhan Corona virus spread, how can we help fight the new virus spread.
One possibility is for the US center for disease control (CDC) in Atlanta become a global coordination center to stay in communication with China for receiving information and sending scientifically verified critical information back to China. CDC has the highest containment facilities and has been entrusted with deadly virus stocks like the variola virus stocks and all strains of influenza and many many other viral and microbial stocks. The CDC should also develop a rapid capacity to screen promising antivirals as well as send to where ever they be needed and be ready to become the 1st responders in case the spread gets out of hand.
With no vaccine in sight and no reproducibly reliable treatment specific against the new virus being close to being deployed any previous scientifically proven broad spectrum antiviral treatment needs to be deployed immediately after CDC allows the testing of candidates that are likely to provide an advantage to a person exposed to the virus to clear the virus. I remember sending antivirals to St. Jude to test against H5N1.
5
@Girish Kotwal the "world" can help China (and other countries like it) by eliminating "wildlife markets" and rooting out the ignorance and stupid mentalities of "folk remedies" and nonsense in their peoples. These types of markets are also going on in Indonesia for that matter, as well as Africa where "bushmeat" is the term there. Outrageous and unacceptable!
1
It has also led to hysteria in China as well. Too secretive and I just read an article where some citizen Joe Bloggs videoed inside a Chinese hospital and got arrested and videos confiscated but was allowed to keep his cellphone. No wonder rumours like this are circulating: Read this article: 'Dogs and cats reportedly thrown from apartments in China over coronavirus fear'.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12305201
4
That is awful! Who could do that to their pets? I could not even if they had the virus. I’d rather get sick. My cats are my babies! One I adopted as a day old kitten and I raised him so he really is my adopted son.
Reminds me of the Chernobyl Netflix series.
10
If Chinese can lie about a deadly epidemic then why does Trump think the Phase 1 trade agreement has teeth? Expecting Chinese to engage in fair trade after 20 years of them cheating in the WTO is lunacy. Chinese recently killed their 1st Nobel peace prize winner in prison, as Germany did in 1935. And you expect Chinese to deal with you foreigners fairly? Wake up America
13
That’s something we snd the Chinese share, coverups. Republicans, Boeing etc.
13
Xi and his henchmen are determined to bring back all of the evils of China under Mao.
10
Let's face it: the Communist Chinese government cannot be believed about anything.
17
Neither can ours anymore,
What's most concerning about this story is the parallel in my mind: "At critical turning points, [the GOP and Trump's aides] put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm [about Trump's response] or political embarrassment." Can we truly trust that DT and his enablers would be honest and grounded in facts in their response to growing Coronavirus outbreak in here? No. It's always about his political win.
23
‘Politics is Always No. 1’ says it all. Even while the US, Japan, EU, Australia and others are evacuating their citizens from the ground zero, Wuhan, China refuses to let Taiwan evacuates it’s citizens. China also prevented Taiwan from participating in a recent World ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 Organization’s emergency conference concerning the spread of the virus. Taiwan, an important international hub, can not get information from WHO directly because of Chinese interference. Taiwan, with its excellent medical expertise, can not contribute to help with the world’s epidemics. All these make the world less safe. But to China, its politics is more important than humanity.
18
As someone else noted - this is much like the USSR's behavior in relation to the Chernobyl disaster.
The People's Republic of China is a threat to its neighbors, a threat to democracy, and, as this event shows (as well as its long history of human rights abuses - the internment of Uyghur muslims being the tip of the iceberg) a danger to its own citizenry. It is high time that our elected representatives treated it as such when it comes to foreign policy, trade and national security.
With state-sponsored businesses like Huawei making significant inroads in the critical communications infrastructure of our chief ally, the UK, there is no time to waste. The PRC is the #1 existential threat to democracy and the progressive values of our time.
19
At least they didn't deny the science.
13
@DCBinNYC
I just took a minute to read up on the head of our CDC. During the early AIDS crisis he was part of the "Faith" based appeal for abstinence & belief that it was "gods" reckoning.
Full disclosure is not always called for That’s why some information is classified or confidential We opted for full disclosure about Ebola and Chris Christie turned the disease into a political football, violating the rights of health care workers. Confidentiality is often the better course.
9
Great reporting, but let us not think for a minute that leaping into action earlier would have prevented this from spreading - it would only have slowed it. As anyone who knows can attest, what makes this virus as bad as it is, is the singular and uncommon ability to be transmitted curing incubation which effectively makes quarantine almost like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. I would like to point out that WHO was notified early on, and that the statements from Chinese health officials about the infectious nature during incubation were dismissed by our top experts in the USA as "highly unlikely". It wouldn't be until a German paper said it was so that it was believed. So let us be clear, the WHO knew of it early enough on, and even after China stated it was unique in its ability to spread during incubation the W.H.O. STILL did not declare an Emergency. So who now is not acting quickly enough? Because the measures we've instigated will not be enough.
15
@Aaron saxton
China is always wrong unless right for the wrong reasons.
Westerners make honest mistakes on occasion.
6
A sadly un-surprising headline and one that underscores that in an interconnected world freedom of the press and speech is more important than ever which is why standing up for democracy will never go out of style.
14
Infectious disease stats are often way too low, even here, because of reluctance to test for pathogens that show up in government reports. My husband has been hospitalized three times for major skin infections and they refused to test for MRSA except the last time, when it came back positive. He received the treatment for MRSA each time (IV vancomycin).
14
If a similar situation (early days of the coronavirus epidemic in China) were to occur in the US during the midst of the Christmas shopping season, would our government try to downplay its severity, for fear of ruining the economy? Just wondering.
16
@Zara1234 Even if the US would, that only means the US would be wrong, too. Two errors do not make one right.
5
@Zara1234
Great question! Would our administration acknowledge or attempt to deal with it, swiftly and openly? Or cover it up, bungle containment, and make things much, much worse?
Over and over, we hear "the economy" matters more than anything. We downplay or fire scientists. We turn our troops into mercenaries for KSA. We blame and punish minority groups for any problems, openly stating we only want people with money to come to the US.
Sell us all out to keep the economy trudging along at the same rate as Obama's, no matter the cost in lives and suffering? Oh heck yeah.
13
@raph101
I would expect nothing but reassurances based on how the stock market fared last week.
6
It may be easy to criticize with the benefit of hindsight. Perhaps a confidential doctors’ communication network by means of which doctors across the country could be told of any pressing concerns in the field might be created.
In the event of a possible outbreak, perhaps people could be told of unconfirmed rumors unlikely true and not to be spread – and that travel should be curtailed while Government authorities conduct research?
3
@M. C. Major Perhaps a reference to the curtailing of travel would create panic. People might benefit from circumspection, and often wiping two hands using wet wipes, this might perhaps reduce transmission.
@M. C. Major Perhaps a reference to the curtailing of travel would create panic. People might benefit from circumspection, and often wiping two hands with wet wipes.
I’m surprised the article didn’t contain Javier Hernandez’s reporting, which he mentioned on The Daily podcast, in which he followed a family with an older woman who fell ill and then died. The doctors at the hospital refused outright to test her body to find out the cause of death or if she had the coronavirus. However, they said the body had to be cremated right away.
How many other people who potentially died of the coronavirus were also not tested and therefore not included in the official death count?
China’s policy of censorship and propaganda, and its rank at the bottom among countries in the world for a free press was always going to bite them where it hurt. Looks like that time has come.
196
@L Yes, I don't think it was same case, but I recall reading here a week or so ago of someone who was unable to get proper care or even a diagnosis for his stepmother and when she died the doctor just write "severe pneumonia" as cause for her death certificate.
18
@L my wife is Chinese and has been following this all quite closely. Her suspicion has been that the death toll and case numbers are entirely manufactured statistics, basically aiming to dampen public by showing a low transmission and a mere 2-3% fatality rate.
22
@L the corona virus story is frightening. The concept that the death numbers and transmission statistics highly inaccurate is harrowing. While i don't know this to be the case, it has long been understood that China's economic statistics are always bogus.
4
At the end of this, the government will blame a few "bad apple" for mishandling the crisis while the problem really is structural. It's just how these things go in China (or any authoritarian regimes). As long as the system remains in place, this sort of crisis will always be just beyond the horizon. It is no coincidence that some of the worst human health crisis in the modern era (e.g., Chernobyl, Sars) happened where they happened.
649
To say worst modern health crisis only happened in authoritarian countries is quite a stretch.
27
Ah, SARS was no crisis, just media hype. Less than 800 people died, which if you divide by the world's population, comes out to about zero. Just like SARS, this virus is not particularly important at all, not a thousandth as deadly as the common flu.
26
@Dan Stackhouse But the hype is very useful fodder for the "hearts and minds" existential "systems competition" the US believes it is in with China so the hype and the hammering of China's "dystopian nightmare of a system" that continues to raise its people's quality of life will continue.
18
On the science and clinical side, China has done just fine; actually amazing considering that 2 hospitals built from scratch will shortly be receiving patients. Their scientists rather quickly were able to discover and reveal the genome of the virus. It appears that their clinicians are providing up to date care to hospitalized patients. They are already contributing to medical journal articles about what they are doing which will enlighten clinicians world-wide. It's on the ideological side, the political side where there's been the catastrophic behavior. We are obviously not to that point in US but this Administration has already shown how political and religious ideology can be promoted over science in America and likely more is to come.
128
@blgreenie Please be aware of just how much medical research and knowledge, public health resources, advanced techniques and technologies, and instruction that American medical schools and health organizations have shared for free with China over the past 2 decades.
4
Just like the Russians with Chernobyl. Why am I not surprised?
29
Is President Xi wearing a mask?
20
Probably not, since masks are only effective if someone with the virus is wearing it to slow down transmission.
4
Nothing will change. After this crisis is over, I hope it is soon, some party officials will lose their positions, but the system will remain intact. The system may even become stronger, as the authority will see the cracks from this crisis and rush to repair those system cracks.
While medical crisis is acute, and food supply is major concern, NYT should report some human/animal rights violations during the epidemic. Private information (ID number, phone, address) get spread around, people's pets get killed, people are not allowed to return to their homes, and sick people are left to die. Many of stories are not even in Wuhan, instead, they are in other places with much fewer cases. Chinese social media is full of those wrenching stories, and people are crying for help.
I also hope the American society will treat Chinese students, immigrants, visitors, and people who travelled there with some dignity. They are not virus. Many are working hard to help, and they should not be shunned or isolated.
15
They didn't do it alone. They have been able to co-opt the WHO which they did, right from the start. Firstly, by stopping them from calling the virus anything related to Wuhan or China, right through to continuing to strong arm Taiwan out of the WHO. They forced the WHO and CDC not to differentiate Taiwan's infection rates with those of China.
The WHO allowed the Chinese government to "contain" the outbreak whilst denying that there was any real danger, all the while more than 10,000 travellers left Wuhan and travelled throughout Asia, Australia and North America, before the beginning of Chinese New Year.
China will do what China always does, which is deflect, deny and dissemble. However, in order to really make it stick they need a puppet organization, which they have found in the WHO and more recently, our very own CDC.
51
This. Thank you. I am appalled by all these epidemiologists applauding the WHO and CDC. Our future is in their hands and it scares me.
This is a wake-up call. So few people in our country understand or even care how little the Beijing government cares about its citizens in relation to its own will for survival. Local officials in municipalities throughout China tend to be even more self-interested and corrupt. Yes, the government seems to be more on the ball now with this virus, but where obfuscation is the norm, you truly never know.
We as a country should obsess just a bit less over our own culture wars, no matter how entertaining or captivating or emotionally-charging, and instead try to grasp the very real threat the mafioso CCP poses to democracy and freedom everywhere through widespread spying and technology theft, misinformation, cheating on trade, economic bullying in developing countries, human rights abuses, and on and on.
The New York Times and other media, as well as our research universities--increasingly open to inadequately vetted Chinese influence--must be vigilant against the CCP's preferred strategy of framing criticism of its dubious practices as "China-bashing" or "anti-Chinese racism."
70
@Dr. Warren Well said.
6
Yes, all these terms that make us feel racist when all where trying to do is be proactive about the future of this pandemic.
It’s too early to come into a verdict. Let’s see how other parts of the world handle this crisis and who is the worst.
2
This is shameful! Silencing any viewpoint that displeases the government is what has gotten China into this mess. Unfortunately the rest of the world will now reap the consequences as well. If China is so concerned about saving face, then they need to change their way of doing business. Open markets full of wild animals, with no use of hygiene or refrigeration are breeding grounds of future pestilence. If the Chinese authorities did not learn their lesson from SARS, it looks like the rest of the world will need to pressure China to change for our own sake.
333
@Tanya S Oh I think China learned their lesson from SARS but they just don't care. Secrecy and trying to save face matters more to them. These open markets are cheaper and less regulation to manage. It's more about the almighty dollar and outward appearance to them. Reminds me of another country.
20
@Tanya S
Lack of hygiene and refrigeration aren't the problem. If the disease comes from eating bats or some other wild animal, letting their meat spoil doesn't make the problem worse.
5
@Tanya S Now is the time to support and lionize China's rights lawyers who have put there lives on the line to make China a better place. To put China on the path to political changes Bo Xilai needs to freed. China needs an inside challenger.
13
Inaction, delay, intimidation, lying.
And in the photo Dr. Li has a little hammer and sickle button on his coat.
Priceless image.
16
@vbering Sounds just like the USA today, doesn't it?
8
Avoid disclosure to avoid political embarrassment? Look at them now! They didn't learn from SARS? Mr. Li will be challenged by this virus to remain in power. Chernobyl was the downfall of the U.S.S.R. The Russians released information about the nuclear reactor explosion only after radioactivity reached Sweden.
10
@David It was a week after the radioactivity had reached Europe. I was there then. Everyone knew it was something to do with the soviet union, but no one was sure what it was. We were told to stay indoors as much as possible.
3
Standard model for China, why would the rest of the world think otherwise?
11
Chinese authoritarian accountability, so admired by Paul Krugman and his globalist spawn, on full display in outbreak.
21
The epidemic sounds like it was from tainted pork. In recent months the Trump administration said it was going to remove inspectors in America’s pork processing plants and allow the companies to inspect themselves It doesn’t take a scientist to understand why it is dangerous to mess around with food inspections. Let’s hope our country reverts back to stringent inspections very soon.
62
A government which tries to control everything, including the dissemination of news and important information damages the best efforts of its own population.
The Chinese government is paranoid about loss of control, That said, despite mistakes, it has taken some huge steps in a short time.
Our own government is not formed in the mold of the Chinese Communists, but it has attempted to silence its own scientists and other experts for political reasons. And we have an administration which spews it's own version of reality, reminiscent of regimes who do not share our democratic ideals. How are we to be sure that a doctor or health worker who discovered a major threat, one which would alarm the population, would be allowed to go public? ( Consider:Even in the 1950's total silence was imposed over the knowledge that people in Utah and Nevada had been exposed to radioactive fallout.)
Right now, I do not believe that the US itself is prepared for a pandemic with high mortality rates (at this early time, the mortality rates do not seem high.) I guess we cross our fingers. And hope that anyone with alarming information isn't prohibited from going public, because the info is "classified" or would cause a panic.
10
10% of Americans have no health insurance, and many more have such high deductibles and/or need to travel to get to quality care that they don't go to doctors until they're in dire straits. Are we ready for this to come to America?
46
There is a great deal of irony in the attempt by the Chinese government and communist party to hide the truth about the virus, and attacking people trying to tell the truth. If the Chinese government and communist party had been open about the disease and taken steps to control it early on, they would have been heroes for stopping/moderating a disease event and possibly preventing an epidemic. Being open about having discovered, and immediately attempted to contain, a unique new virus would have given them respect and recognition throughout the world. Now, they have created an economic and humanitarian crisis that is going to reverberate and reflect negatively on them for decades.
366
@MSC
The real reason they cover it up is because they project a China that is this modern country that is going to lead the world, when in fact they have a country that in some ways is the old China of all kinds of corruption and mismanagement, a health care system that is inadequate (and corrupt), and more importantly, where thanks to corruption and government inefficiency sanitary conditions and practices are almost inviting the next big pandemic (the market where this virus came out of was supposed to be illegally operating, yet instead of closing it down, the authorities went in there, 'sanitized it', and let it reopen).
It is will known that certain kinds of wildlife like bats and some other animals routinely transfer viruses to humans, yet China allows these animals to be sold for food. Pigs are a major source of diseases, along with fowl, yet in China the way they are raised and sold makes it almost inevitable new outbreaks are going to occur. The government, instead of addressing the problem, tries to bury it to save face, and because they have the power to do so, they do. As bad as it is in the US with our food supply, with self inspected meat packing plants thanks to the GOP, and the abuses, they can't easily bury the truth, despite Trump being just like Xi, among other things fear of lawsuits keeps them honest, unlike in China where you can't sure (that illegal market, I am sure, pays money to government officials).
19
@MSC They did not learn from SARS we can only hope that this will create some changes. Unfortunately based on the past way of doing business I have little hope.
5
@MSC
No different than the whistleblower trying to warn the American people about the virus in our government. You are right. There is a great deal of irony.
10
An excellent article, which read like the script of a documentary. Hopefully the novel coronavirus may not be Big One, the pandemic virus, but what if it is? The delays would have had catastrophic consequences.
Xi Jinping wants no decentralized decision making. Will he make the necessary changes to prevent a repeat of the frightening scenario described in the article? I really doubt it.
6
There was an AP article today about a student at Wuhan University who went home to his village for the holidays. He had a cold and went to a hospital to have it checked out and the doctors told him he didn't have the virus. Five days afterward police descended on his home and he is now under house arrest. He is under constant surveillance, checked three times a day, had his phone camera disabled, photos deleted and messages monitored. If stories like this get out via social media then you will have a significant percentage of sick people that won't go to the hospital under any circumstance. The people in charge seem to only have hammers and they aren't very good with those.
31
@Patrick
A good way to summarize the worst aspects of Chinese response, to any threats. The hammer. Once a Communist symbol for "proletarian solidarity," it's now a sign of mindless repression.
Wasn't this supposed to be China's century?? China is a danger to the world, they suppress ideas and information, they use their vast wealth to buy corrupt officials in 3rd world countries and then when they can't pay, they own them. This open air market has zero standards of accountability for health and safety and it was a wonderful laboratory for breeding a new super bug. what a great Chinese century this will be!!
20
Enough of China and their hideous live meat markets. There needs to be intense international pressure to shut them down or the world needs to treat China as the pariah that it is.
22
Nothing must be allowed to threaten the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship of the Chinese proletariat.
I lived in mainland China several years back. When I asked why Mao, who killed many millions of Chinese in the name of the People, was still revered and why his crimes were not better known, my informant, a university student in engineering, told me, Mao is our Jesus. We must never criticize him.
Totalitarian dictatorships value absolute power over everything else.
Tough thing, they (we) can never control Nature.
I hope that this will lead to such instability that the Chinese people will begin to weaken and finally destroy their government.
Communism has only brought misery wherever it has been.
14
@Simon Sez You mean authoritarianism. We see a similar totalitarian attitude under the current administration.
I remember when we were confident that our food and water were safe because we had regulations and inspectors. That is no longer the case. Profit is once again overcoming safety, security, well-being, environmental protections, community--even law as the only consideration in play.
Not long ago, emulating western countries, Xi Jing Ping told his people, by hook or by crook, make money. China became powerful and modern, but also polluted. We are now going down this same road once again, and it obviously has nothing to do with communism. I hope you never get to see Lake Erie on fire.
11
I am surprised that anyone thinks it is a surprise that China did anything except what they did. There are no examples of China having been transparent on anything to date so more of the same should have been the expectation.
Unfortunately I also think it very likely that many other nations would have been in the same net predicament, just that the underlying reasons for inaction would be different.
15
There will be plenty of time to examine what China did wrong and what China did right. But at this time our attention should be focused on examining our own weaknesses when it comes to dealing with this disease and with emerging diseases in general.
Even with full knowledge of the situation, I read yesterday that a person had returned from to San Jose from Wuhan without being put in quarantine. What's worse, he had been sent home after seeking help for a respiratory problem at a clinic/emergency room, during which time he obviously exposed people. That seems like criminal negligence to me.
What, for example, are our plans for dealing with the homeless during a pandemic? Mini-cities within our largest population centers who are living in the open in crowded, unsanitary conditions with no toilets, no plans for identifying and isolating them, no easy way to identify their contacts, etc. This is a disaster in the making for the homeless and for the larger population.
What are our own plans? What are we doing wrong?
16
Since most of the funding has been cut for US response to a pandemic, a lot of people are going to be suffering as this runs it's course. It's only the beginning of it here. I don't think we can predict the severity, but people should start brushing up on their hand washing skills. Especially those who have compromised immune systems (young, elderly and those with other serious health issues).
10
Small clusters of viral illnesses are not uncommon. I have two relatives who were infected in different years by viruses in central Alberta. Both ended up with a disability and one died prematurely. My physician also had a patient who died of a rare viral illness that was part of a cluster (statistical anomaly or communicable was unknown). We can hardly go to WHO level emergency every time a new viral illness emerges in a cluster of fewer than 10 patients (all of the three aforementioned clusters were under 10 patients, occurred in Alberta, Canada and did not prompt public warnings).
What we can do is tell the Chinese government that these live, multi species meat markets need to be shut down permanently.
24
The response is typical in China, at first try to sweep it under the rug and hope it goes away and then when it doesn’t, act with over the top draconian measures like cutting off an entire city. Dare I say both responses are based more on politics than on science. Nonetheless, Chinese society is starting to wake up to their systems shortcomings and there is a genuine political will to fix these amongst both the top leaders and the population at large.
It’s impossible for a country of 1.4 billion people to do everything right all the time. I think what they are doing now, however, is trying their best. This is more than I can say for the Senate of my own country.
93
If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is—not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.
In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure.
In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response [Foreign Policy Magazine] encountered was distressed confusion.
159
@Mary Elizabeth Lease Maybe just send all of the samples needing testing to the white house until further instructed. Perhaps direct the patients needing testing to Mar-a-lago ? I am sure there will be some coordinated direction soon. After all, Pence (judging from recent Iowa video) is clearly "in the loop" on medicaid block grant plans; so, he probably knows what to do here as well.
10
Just read the article in Foreign Policy Magazine you referenced. “Trump has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response” Jan 31, 2020. It’s terrifying.
The massive defunding and dissolution of epidemic response and coordination units across so many US government agencies that Need to work together in a situation like this!
4
@Mary Elizabeth Lease Your second paragraph is the story, so far, of 2020! God help us if it's true.
1
But didn’t Trump tweet that China was handling it just fine? Hasn’t he also cut the public health budget? And as for Chinese authoritarianism- how about rule by the rich in the US, with a pretence of meaningful democracy?
17
@Gary
We all know trump won't let anything get in the way of a trade deal with China that he can slap his name on. Is it really a stretch to think his administration would lie to us about about this virus, or virtually anything else?
A senior scientist in my country who has significant responsibility for dealing with this virus was very positive in praise of how China reacted. I'll take his word for it.
8
@Grace Unless you want to go through life believing that they lie all the time??? Sometimes you know them well enough by reputation.
@Gary
Right, I guess you'll believe anything government officials tell you.
7
Easy to "arm chair this from pundit land..particularly with the typical anti-China government rant. Yet you are fine with the CDC and WHO dragging feet to react to some pretty timely and transparent data on the virus and it's genome (in record time by the way.. and much much faster than back in SARS timelines.
Fact is.. it took some time to A) identify that a new virus was at play here, and 2) to have kits that could test for it...because you first must isolate and identify the genome.. and then produce tests that react to it. First cases were not confirmed by definitive testing until around the 19th of January.
Keep in mind.. people get sick all the time with cold like or flu like virus.. even in China.. and especially in winter season.
/eyeroll.
35
@Chuck As I wrote in my comment right above, be careful of those who frame criticism of China's dictatorship as "anti-China government ranting." False equivalence, the type of logical fallacy you've employed here, is a favorite tool. By the way, as an organization, the CDC, based right here in Atlanta, has graciously aided and trained Chinese health organizations for years for free and simply exists in a different stratosphere of efficiency, competence, and transparency.
Some "pundits" have actually lived and worked in China for a very long time.
3
What a timely illustration of what happens when the party line trumps inconvenient truths, when dishonesty in politics is tolerated.
A lesson for all Republicans.
421
That you limit this to Republicans is ironic. Your denial that Democrats do it too is not unlike China’s denial of the original problem.
14
@M. somehow different from the Democratic Party? When will you get over your blind obsession and realize both parties are corrupt, dishonest, and in the pockets of billionaires?
19
@Charles Usual whataboutism...not saying Democrats are saints but Republicans have become the masters at gaslighting.
If the current administration can't be honest about such simple things as weather reporting or troop injuries, how can we trust them if something more significant happens? Oh, that's right, we have to trust the "fake news" press...
8
If there remains any doubt that communism itself is the worst virus in human history, at war against humanity itself, this story, with its parallels to Chernobyl should put such doubts to rest.
Atavistic hardliners in China seem to believe that they can pocket the benefits of modernity and treat their people like cattle.
When was the last time an important country has had so many disasters in one year, all due to the political incompetence built in to their ideology?
34
@Frank D Actually, the communistic portions are quite healthy, with easy access to all citizens to clean, safe housing, neighborhood markets and excellent transportation systems.
Their capitalist side has also been quite successful, if as in the USA, one disregards regulatory controls and allows the environment to be thoroughly polluted in the quest for ever more growth and wealth.
Authoritarian governments, whether theocratic, communist or capitalist, have certainly been known to disregard and maltreat the citizenry. Unfortunately we're experiencing the worst combinations of these right here.
6
@Frank. America.
Ask Puerto Rico, Ohio California etc.
What happened to the pandemic chain of command structure-in the US? Defunded. You either conclude this is not related to the type of governance or that America is an autocratic country- recently formed in the PAC infested red states.
2
"At critical moments, officials chose to put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis to avoid public alarm and political embarrassment."
This has always been China's modus operandi, why is anyone surprised this time around?
30
Hardly surprising from my point of view. Why they are being praised by everyone for the response is beyond me. They do not deserve such praise and while no one outside of China has been no reported deaths outside of China as yet, this could have easily been the case as it was with SARS.
27
For a time, it looked like the Chinese government was going to be a little more open and communicative in the 21st Century. But, like the Trump Administration, they acted irresponsible, cruel children -- albeit, children with weapons and no morals -- creating, in the end, a larger problem for themselves, and the world.
17
It reminds one of Australia, coal exports, and climate change. The creating a larger problem for themselves and the world part.
10
@Zamboanga Prey tell Zam have u consumed fossil fuels to cool/heat your home, produce the car u drive, create your cell phone, package the food you eat, that I, like you, pay nothing for it's disposal... I could go on and on for we are all the same. We are ALL complicit.
As for Australian coal (that I do NOT defend as an Australian) do some research on where else the world would, today, source their coal fired energy requirments? There ARE many more coal sources widely described as 'more dirty' than ours.
Should what should we do? Decline access? Perhaps people in those, mostly less developed, countries would have some interesting things to say about your (and my) lifestyle. Maybe too, they might have something to say about the USA's shale oil production...
So the problem is utterly, and I do hope not existentially, complex and we are ALL responsible. However, we ALL collectively can help to address this complexity...at home, today. Got any ideas you can enact, today, Zam?
Unsurprisingly our bushfires have concentrated attention...yet, unfortunately, also it appears, some finger pointing.
Maybe when the world realises that finer pointing also means three fingers are pointing back at the finger pointer...that perhaps then, and only then, we may ALL be able to extend our hand to each other in global focus of OUR problem.
2
Informative article on coronavirus from Mr. Buckley and Mr. Myers. Please give us updates on Dr. Li. He should be hailed as a hero for the people of China and I surely this opens their eyes about the government.
80
Dr. LI’s story has now been widely publicized in China’s social media. The confession letter he was forced to sign was also attached to the story. He is now considered as a hero.
24
Dr. Li's before and after pictures haunt me. As a hospital based physician, I am the first line of defense. I do not want to die for a country that either ignores or takes advantage of physicians' ethics and opinions ( AMA, politicians, lawyers) or decries physicians supposedly huge salaries (regular folks, thinking our many years of education are worthless, and we are to be sued and blamed). This nation grieves over the accidental loss of a millionaire celebrity athlete. Will it grieve over the thousands of doctors and nurses lost in the trenches? Maybe I'll just stockpile meds, water and food, and save my own. Physician, take care of thyself.
247
@AC Doctors have cartel behavior. The AMA lobbied Congress to limit the number residencies to a maximum cap because they feared an oversupply of doctors would decrease their salaries
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/12/702500408/are-doctors-overpaid
The AMA also made it harder for foreign doctors to immigrate to the US in the late 70s. Since then medical costs have grown faster than inflation. US doctors are the highest paid in the world but that high cost does not buy us better care. The world’s best paid doctors have a slightly below average mortality rate.
A shortage of doctors does increase their salaries, it also leads to burn out. The supply of doctors cannot meet the patient demand. This leads to costly mistakes and more expensive malpractice insurance. The AMA, a group of doctors, lobbies congress to artificially limit the supply of doctors. So yes, physicians heal thyself.
But seriously that is why I am against universal healthcare. It would be as effective as mandating we give tax dollars to OPEC and hoping they lower prices. I will not blame China if the US has an epidemic and patients are turned away at hospitals due to shortages. I will blame it on decades of cartel like behavior from doctors.
24
@PictureBook
First generation, first year medical student here - spot on.
Cartel like indeed. The elitist medical professional community has played a huge part in the problems our field is facing.
17
@PictureBook I don't see how you arrive at being against universal healthcare. All the stats show it is better than the US system.
8
Let's see, the article says that the market was closed Jan 1. Then nine days after the market closed, a man who shopped there became the first fatality. It also says that his wife had developed symptoms five days after she did, and she had never visited the market. That shows they knew, as of Jan 9th or 10th, that there was human to human transmission.
Later on in the article, it says medical workers were getting sick by Dec 25th, more evidence of human to human transmission. But that fact was not acknowledged by the Chinese government until Jan 20th. That's when they finally admitted that one patient had infected at least 14 medical workers.
So this case is yet another example of the harm caused by government lies and secrecy.
144
In Wuhan, the sale of the Chinese horseshoe bats at markets as a food may surprise people who have not visited China, but in virtually every city in Central and Southern China items strange to western tastes are eaten. While that practice once probably reflected a paucity of sources of protein in Chinese diets, today when China is much better equipped to feed its population, people buy and eat odd items because of tradition and because they are tasty. Huge fried cockroaches on sticks are enjoyed in the street markets of Shanghai.
Bats as the biggest mammalian source of viral zoonoses for humans, and that fact is critical.
Westerners know from our literature about Transylvania and the ancient legends of Dracula and vampires. If rabies is the one of the few viruses to which bats have no effective immunity, perhaps that knowledge could lead to design of an effective vaccine against various bat-carried types of coronaviruses.
Was the government of Wuhan too embarrassed about local food practices to stop the outbreak before it threatened people around the world? Apparently, so.
26
If this doesn’t convince China’s government to shut down those markets once and for all, then nothing ever will.
As another poster commented, this would very likely force the sales of unregulated exotic livestock to go underground as an illegal black market.
If that happens and China still does nothing to curb those activities, then it is intentionally turning a blind eye and another health crisis is sure to be on the horizon.
The WHO has no teeth and is too slow to respond effectively.
Another NY Times article cited a proposal that the WHO institute a tiered alert system that would be much more effective than the all or nothing approach they take now.
It’s like watching smoke billowing from the windows of a burning building and doing nothing until it’s burned down to the ground like poor Notre Dame Cathedral.
But the WHO is a political creature as much as any other, and as the aforementioned article stated, their praise of the Chinese government’s handling of the crisis was “lavish”.
Yes, unfortunately, politics is always #1.
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@Larry Chan : Notre Dame Cathedral didn't burn to the ground. Sure, it sustained considerable damage, but a good portion of the structure is still in place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris_fire
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It is totally unacceptable that The Chinese government knowingly endangered the lives of millions of visitors, own citizens and populations across the world when it knew that cases of the Corona virus started being diagnosed in early December 2019 but failed to acknowledge the epidemic until January 20, 2020. This act has further eroded trust in the Chinese government. The international community should send a clear message to the Chinese government that their handling of the initial phase of this emergency was utterly negligent.
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This is why China must change course and once again allow civil society to develop. Unless qualified spheres of expertise independent of political command and control are allowed to speak and respond to emergencies everyone is afraid to respond until those really not qualified but have political power issue commands. China had been making great strides in developing spheres of expertise and independent engagement, but now it is officially forbidden even to mention 'civil society'. Were the doctors allowed to respond immediately based on their expertise and not waiting for a political officer's approval this scourge could have been checked and many lives saved.
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I’m concerned about the American strategy to contain the virus. At least health authorities should announce that people getting symptoms should put aside any concerns about the insurance coverage and bills from visiting the Emergency Room. China has declared that all treatment from this virus is free. I’ll bet that visiting an ER will cost more than a plane ticket to China.
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@Samz in Wuhan the treatment is free only to those who are fortunate to get formally diagnosed. The trick the government plays is to reject many more patients by denying and delaying their diagnosis.
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@Yang : Where did you hear that only those diagnosed with Wuhan coronavirus would get free care in China?
It would be great if you could provide a link to a source.
If this is true, it would be an incentive for the government *not* to diagnose everyone, and could contribute to the current fatality rate being significantly off.
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@Rose This has been mentioned in some of the media coverage. I can't remember the exact source, but check Radio Free Asia, there is much more coverage there. My understanding is that there are some perverse incentives that *are* pushing the numbers down -- the doctors won't officially diagnose the illness in people who show up with private health insurance, they wait until those private funds are depleted, labeling the individual as a 'suspected' case while they are getting treatment. When that runs out and they become eligible for the government-sponsored treatment, they do the final test and the person gets the free coverage.
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If things are that simple, we would be free from flu, cold, and/or infectious diseases. And we wouldn't have the 2008 Wall Street melt down or the 2018 & 2019 Boeing 737MAX disasters.
In reality, things are very complicated. Rules and regulations are also deeply intertwined that knowing when to do the right thing is tough. One needs proof to correct the conventional thinking. Words are useless. One needs convincing evidence. Proper communication with evidence in a timely manner requires skill and thoughtfulness in a big governmental organization. I will not be surprised to see mischief happening in this case.
This is not the first time nor the last time that bad things happen. We need to look forward to solving this crisis, not blaming the individual, company or government.
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@Usok I appreciated your remarks. But how can a problem be solved if experts (the doctors at the front lines) are not allowed to publicly voice their concerns; Dr. Li was sanctioned for his statements.
As to evidence, the people in the emergency ward and the fact that the coronavirus was sequenced are proof enough.
The Chinese government is to blame here. Here in the States it's not much different.
A pandemic is coming, it's only a matter of time and hundreds of millions will die. We need to find a better way to deal with this problem, and that means a more pro-active government response.
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Wold health organizations, including CDC.. are consistently praising China for both fast reaction to a new novel virus as well as transparency in disclosing their findings.. AND the genome of the virus (which enables a world wide full court press to get a vaccine up and ready)... and of course pundits want to opine up a brush fire.
Sometimes.. it's better to just stay quiet and let health professionals and governments sort it out. It requires patience and objectivity though.
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Chuck, you are wrong about this! If you have access to the free press, you can review what medical experts have been saying. China has been critically silent when leaders needed to speak and give factual information.
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@kevyn
Prove it.
Thanks for this article. Earlier coverage of how China initially responded was too complementary to China to be credible.
400
Indeed.
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@Tony Drawing parallels between the kinds of extreme human rights abuses & suppression of truth that the People's Republic of China gets up to every day of the week and anything done by White House administrations (past or present) does such egregious violence to the truth that if anyone sees this as anything other than a gargantuan false equivalence, we truly are occupying different realities.
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@Chad Brown What are you talking about? One of the first reports in the NYT on China’s response critiqued China’s withholding of information.
Having said that, I should add that the Chinese Government – which perhaps has more integrity that the US Senate – was perhaps aiming to reduce the potential for inflammatory criticism and highly emotive statements.
Also, Head of Wuhan’s local government has even apologized, saying sorry for their reaction!
1