Another fear(ful) leader and coward.
5
Take a second and imagine what something like this would look like with Trump in the White House...
162
@J
With the right timing he would love it. Maybe a few more months from now. He would start rounding people up. Would be the perfect "excuse" to do a little "cleansing".
16
@EGD
Oh please, don’t blame Democrats for the disaster which is the Iowa caucus. If memory serves, the Republicans had issue with the Iowa caucus in both 2016 and 2012.
29
@J
Trump would just produce a Sharpie-altered map showing all regions are minimally affected and his base would swallow it, hook, line and sinker, while everyone around them collapsed in in fever.
30
Seems that China has had major accidents at their “Germ Warfare Plants” for some time now. Of course, they go to great lengths in order to keep the fact of their misdeeds under wraps – primarily from their own infected population. But this has been going-on and documented for decades!
And Wuhan is quite near one of these Germ Facilities. As our government and a number of other governments are well aware via their various spy and intelligence networks.
13
@J L. S. , There is not a shred of truth in this so called "explanation" for the outbreak. The first rule for governments who control the evil practice of germ warfare is to develop at the outset a vaccine or anti-microbial drug to protect its own population. They would not want to infect and kill their own people.
13
@J L. S. , This is utter nonsense. It is almost certain that this corona virus was transmitted from animals, possibly bats. If what you claim was so, they would have long ago develop d a vaccine.
8
It is my understanding from contacts I have who have been to Wuhan and surrounding areas that the city is cutoff completely and that perhaps 10,000 people have died of different health conditions largely because medical supplies can’t get in. Hunger is also an issue. Bridges that provide a route out of Wuhan have had the middle sections removed. Dirt mounds surround the city with soldiers preventing exit. It sounds like a nightmare. The point is, coronavirus associated deaths is just a part of the story. The Chinese response to quarantine is having a collateral affect of many deaths largely due to a lack of medical supplies into the city. This is an unmitigated nightmare for those people and i suspect that very powerful premier is feeling the heat from internal competitors.
74
This is simply not true. Contrary to medical supplies not able to get in, there’s a special express lane for the medical supplies to get in. And the national couriers have all waived delivery fees for sending supplies to Wuhan. There’s no hunger issue, the problems is more that the local farmers can’t sell their food as much as they can supply them.
There have been instances where villages have cordoned themselves off using various creative methods. But now there’s a new law stating that such behaviour is unlawful.
24
Well, using commercial satellite images, that should be pretty straightforward to distinguish which approach is correct - open bridges welcoming incoming supplies, or an enforced, embargoed barricade. Given CCP policies, I’m leaning toward the latter.
15
@Dan Flynn
Locking the gates so people can't get out? This is the stuff that archetypal epic descriptions of slaughter and genocide are made of.
2
Yes, Xi may well be distancing himself from any political danger coming from this medical crisis.
Whereas, Dr. & Emperor Trump is bravely and courageously (as he did in volunteering during the Vietnam War) going ‘All In’ with regard to risking his crony capitalist power as Emperor, to speak to ‘we the American people’ by compassionately and fairly dealing with all Americans who he represents as faux-President — and of course providing the kind of high support even for Purple Heart Lt. Col. Vindman to insure that he gets the same kind of deserved attention, not at the VA, but up close and personal for the psychological torture that he received as his only award from this insane coward Emperor Trump.
4
Trump’s silence about the Coronavirus is telling. He doesn’t want to assume any responsibility for an outbreak here, so he adopts the Trumpian way of pretending something doesn’t exist so maybe it will go away.
Recall the Republicans’ reaction to a case of Ebola in the US when Obama was President. They howled about the need to stop entry into the US of anyone from Africa or who could even spell Ebola, the usual Republican blame game.
7
It was a good thing that the rest of the world restricted travel to the US when there were 284,000 deaths due to the American flu in 2009 (according to the CDC)... oh, wait that’s not right, no restrictions were implemented. And as a result even Egypt suffered deaths from Americans entering their country... look it up...
Why were there no calls to censure the US? Double standards...
And why do people in the US keep making reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre when no such massacre occurred? This persistent lie was revealed in US Embassy communications released by WikiLeaks - search for “Daily Telegraph” (a right-wing British newspaper!) and Wikileaks and Tiananmen.
3
@Andrew Do you want those ghosts to talk to you directly?
2
No doubt in a hermetically sealed bunker and who could blame him. And I don't think that is inappropriate. No doubt the US would protect the president similarly. The downside of the bunker, of course, is that the optics are never great when you broadcast from it.
26
@The F.A.D.
That’s disgusting. Hiding is what cowards do, not what leaders do. Of course Trump would run over his children rather than face any sort of danger or inconvenience. Real presidents of the United States would never hide themselves away like the cowardly Xi.
3
My purpose in my other post was not to diminish the actual and potential threats of Wuhan coronavirus. Rather, it was to note how we come to accept, at our own peril, threats that become culturally acceptable (e.g. massive vehicular deaths) or the new normal (e.g. suicide bombers.)
Influenza is somewhat in a category of its own, inasmuch as it functions variously as a normal and as a potential threat. It may kill 30,000 in a "normal" year, but it can spiral orders of magnitude, such as the 1918 flu, which killed around 600,000 Americans.
Americans and probably all of humanity are not good at threat assessment. Look at our response to 3,000 killed on 9/11 and compare it to our response to threats that annually kill many more people. In is entirely understandable that the average person fears the unknown threat more than the known threat. However, it is the responsibility of leaders and any media claiming to hold to journalistic standards to put threats in perspective, to shape the narrative and response in a way that serves the people, not to simply pander to human fears nor to minimize actual threats.
1
I read the book on Chernobyl last year and one thing that stuck with me was how disinterested Gorby was from getting involved in the unfolding disaster. He came across as a non-leader. I wonder if a similar dynamic is playing out here.
Typical oligarch.
We used to laugh in disbelief at the great rooms of uniformly attired men all applauding the great leader in unison. We used to gape in disbelief at the raised right arm. How could anyone back a single person who is clearly not competent to deal with every problem with anything more than the tool kit of greatness. More guns and our brave war fighters will wipe out all enemies, even viruses with explosive results.
It was just early October China celebrated their great communist victory in the civil war in 1949. What a spectacle of firepower overseen by one dour old guy. Modern day emperors are not up to the task of feeding 1.4 billion with chickens and pigs, electrifying 100s of cities with 10 million each without coal, or suppressing the truth about how little they control.
1
"The death ..., Dr. Li Wenliang, ... censured for warning his medical school classmates of the spread ... unleashed a torrent of pent-up public grief and rage over the government’s handling of the crisis. "
What "government handling" ??! The realities of "who said what when" - in the middle of any such crisis, are almost never recoverable. My own "guess"; and it is exactly that, would be that the Wuhan cops called the top medical officials in Wuhan and Hubei and asked what they should do. It's well established historical fact that panic can cause more harm than the microbes- and in the early stages, we didn't KNOW diddly about what this disease was really going to do. So the cops on the beat received the un-nuanced message to shut rumors down. Then acted like cops; trying to do the right thing...
Pointing fingers - and at something so nebulous as "the government!" is a feeble-minded reaction. Both the Chinese social media mouths, and the US press, could do much better.
Ask yourself - exactly what would YOU have done that would - definitely - have been "better"? And how many deaths from panic would be "ok"; and how many deaths from the spread of the virus- by people fleeing - would be acceptable?
I've worked in Wuhan. Good people; solid city. This situation is terrible, and terrifying. Hold on. Keep in mind; no government can control earthquakes. This is one.
2
President Xi Jinping may be in a safe-house bunker but he still has a firm grip on power and will continue to silence all and any who are potential threats to his regime.
Chen Qiushi was already on the government radar for pro-democracy views during the Hong Kong protests.
The following quotes are from CNN:
“Chen Qiushi, a citizen journalist who had been doing critical reporting from Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicenter of the outbreak, went missing on Thursday evening, just as hundreds of thousands of people in China began demanding freedom of speech online.”
“Friends and family later found out from the police that he had been forced into quarantine.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/09/asia/wuhan-citizen-journalist-intl-hnk/index.html
1
why is it so quiet from north korea...could this be a planed escaped weapon that ended up in central china.. intended to reduce the population of an over consuming nation ...who knows eh..Xi
In the past years Xi Jinping has been pursuing draconian methods to tighten control over the media, the Internet, academia and every aspect of people’s lives.
But since the spread of the Coronavirus he prefers to keep a lower profile, knowing that the blame game bounces between local authorities in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, and the central government in Beijing.
He is mindful of the logic: When a disaster strikes, someone must be seen to pay the price. And he’s not willing to do so.
1
Sometimes I wonder how much of Xi is just the suave Brylcreemed hair.
2
Chinese President Xi Jinping ended democracy with Chinese characteristics aka a collective term-limited leadership.
Effectively taking on the discredited feared cult of personality of Mao Zedong and the Mandate of Heaven of Chinese Emperors to reign and rule until his death.
Xi Jinping can't punch down and blame his underlings for this coronavirus crisis without looking cowardly and weak.
And by definition since he has no governing political peers he can't force one of his former peers to take charge and risk blame for failure or take credit for success.
Mr. Xi sent the nominal Prime Minister of China Li Keqiang off to Wuhan to show the face of the government. A task that he should have done himself to show command, control and empathy.
But Mr. Xi has apparently cowered and covered in place inside the elite leadership compound near the Forbidden City. Mr. Xi is the princeling son of a Long March legend father who Mao Zedong purged and Deng Xiaoping resurrected.
Who knew that Mr. Xi was so ignorant, immoral and incompetent?
9
Not much of a difference between trump and China both are in charge both lie, both terrorize the citizens with the help of Facebook who is anti America
Why would anyone be truthful about anything
Trump fired people smears them when they dare to challenge and tell the truth. China sends people to th re-education camps
It isn’t strange that the two love buddies fight and make up
Trump is a danger to the world and now China has a plague that they don’t even have to answer for. So what’s the clown president going to do ? Impose another tariff
3
Where's Xi? Celebrating Lantern Festival inside Zhongnanhai with China's first lady. Who cares about the Chinese lives. The worst crisis in years? More crisis are coming. Sad for poor Chinese people.
“…Suddenly, my eyes were attracted to the immense flock of black birds that hovered directly below me. They circled to the ground and there before my eyes, stark and silent, lay the Martians with the hungry birds pecking and tearing shreds of flesh from their dead bodies. Later, when their bodies were examined in laboratories, it was found that they were killed by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which all their systems were unprepared…
...
It’s in your paper – you go find it, this time…
Xi Jinping, what a farce he is! After a thousand years of dynasties. After countless lives lost during Mao’s revolution and the Chinese people’s sincere struggle to end the era of the emperors, Xi crowns himself President for life! And like Mao his portrait will someday surely hang over the entrance to the Forbidden City. Hopefully the banner will read, “ Xi, the beginning of a New Error”!
2
no one can shake Xi's ruling....
Articles such as these that are no clearly anti-China as is the only perspective even taken by Chris Buckley are not news articles but belong in the op-ed section of this paper.
Is this merely click bait? The NY Times and these reporters fail to report real news about the coronavirus.
From Pharmaceutical Technology -
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has said that an application has been filed seeking a new patent on Gilead Sciences’ investigational antiviral drug, remdesivir, believed to have the potential to treat the new coronavirus.
Remdesivir, originally developed to treat Ebola, is not licensed or approved anywhere. However, the drug is being advanced into human clinical trials for coronavirus treatment in China. This comes after the drug showed early signs of effectiveness in coronavirus patients in the US when given with chloroquine, an existing malaria drug.
Chloroquine is marketed in China and can be obtained via independent supply. Meanwhile, remdesivir has intellectual property barriers in the country and a patent application was submitted on 21 January.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology added that the drug ‘will enter major countries around the world through the Patent Cooperation Agreement (PCT) approach’.
In addition, the institute said that it made the patent application to protect the national interest, and will not exercise its rights if foreign companies collaborate with China to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
Can't wait to see Donny Trump nursing the sick when New York is in lock down if they could even get it together to do it.
President Xi has gone missing.
If you are reading this President Xi - you need to permananently BAN Wildlife markets.
Unlike the US President - it's time to show leadership.
Time to move your country forward.
Thank you.
There is so much Chinese propaganda in these comments--Do Not assume that anyone is who they say they are online.
1
Trump called him to compliment him on his handling of the virus, so he must be doing very, very well.
It is appalling for all passengers stuck on ships and in quaratined towns. Nice little petri dish.
1
Wouldn't it be poetic justice if Xi dies from the virus, and his death creates fresh, healthy political air?
1
One can never know the exact truth of the pandemic, but it's safe to assume China is not coming forward with the whole truth. Read this chilling tweet thread that estimates over 1,200 a day are dying and being cremated. They look at the plumes of SO2 being released over the Wuhan Provence.
https://twitter.com/inteldotwav/status/1226267582740811777
The peak of this infection was predicted by a Chinese expert 12 days ago. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-01/28/c_138739773.htm
Maybe they don't need all this help from western experts. What they really need is medical supplies and foreign countries not spreading the wildfire of panic and misinformation.
3
Where's Xi? Hiding under his rock where all dictators go when the people are suffering.
1
Funny how ephemeral life is. All the bluster and arrogance gone from the President for life, Xi
"Where’s Xi? China’s Leader Commands Coronavirus Fight From Safe Heights"
Why, when in the current season, half over, it is estimated (by the C.D.C.) there have been at least 22 million flu illnesses, 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths from flu, there is no article headlined, "Where’s Trump? America's Leader Doesn't Even Bother To Command Flu Fight From Safe Heights"
1
@Steve Fankuchen The fundamental difference, if that happened, NY Times could publish such article headlined "Where's Trump?" in US. Dare you publish this "Where's Xi" in China?
Xi is an authoritarian and coward just like Trump.
Lead from behind! When you get to be "President for Life", that is one of the perks.
When your country is overcome by a deadly epidemic, you get to "fight the problem" from a _very_ safe place far away from crowds of sick people.
And when the epidemic has ended, you get your photo taken in front of one of those hospitals that were built in 3 days, with a sign behind you saying "Mission Accomplshed!"
Rank hath its privileges.
Really? Maybe he should be throwing paper towels are victims? This is not adult journalism, it' s a juvenile jibe.
Not only is the Mao du jour in China in hiding letting others take the heat, he’s also no doubt orchestrating cooking the books on the real death toll in China from the virus.
Xi is a coward. Happy to attend parades and central committee congresses where he looks the strong man but nowhere to be found in a real crisis.
1
Where are Uncles Lao and Zhuang to give Xi advise to rule in accordance with the Dao?
1
This is just more proof that Communism has little to do with actually helping the common good and, instead, is all about cynical control of the People.
2
The title of this report reflects more on American politics than about China's Xi. The bone-spur commander-in-chief reality show host Donald Trump went to Afghanistan for the first time last Thanksgiving, an American military disaster zone. More Americans were killed there than people killed by coronavirus so far.
NY Times wrote at the time: "Mr. Trump made the visit, his first to Afghanistan, under a shroud of secrecy, arriving in a darkened airplane just after 8:30 p.m. local time and departing a few hours later on a trip that the White House had concealed from his public schedule for security reasons...."
CNN sprinkled these words in their report: "slipped unnoticed... a bare-bones military plane ... his second visit to a war zone as President after a similar Christmas Eve trip last year to Iraq ... shrouded in secrecy ... Trump golfed as usual on Wednesday ... boarded a military plane at an undisclosed airport ... Trump's plane landed ... in pitch darkness. Window curtains were drawn once again and the plane's lights were shut off to conceal Trump's arrival. ..."
It's show time, folks!
China obviously marches to a different drum. File this report under "China's pending doom" along with those by Gordon Chang, Minxin Pei, Michael Pettis, Tyler Cowen, etc.
2
Xi and his dictatorship should resign: they are fatally dangerous to the world, not just their kingdom. Clearly the police and secret state Xi built has contributed directly to the mayhem in Hubei, now extending worldwide. The first known case was December First 2019. In an open society, this could have led to an early alert... instead, lying about the existence of the epidemic became a state mission in the next 6 weeks. Those not cooperating were punished. Apparently individuals reporting dismal conditions in Hubei healthcare are Xi-disappeared.
Xi said: “Our progress will not be halted by any storms and tempests.” yes, but a pandemic could stop you, dictator. Pericles was judged in Athens, 2,450 years ago, for his mishandling of Athenian society, forcing people to live in a way which caused a devastating epidemic (during a war Pericles partly instigated).
Xi's model of government, where one brain decides of all, as if it were an emperor from 2,000 years ago, is thoroughly obsolete: it condemns China to be led by one tiny nervous system instead of a great collective mind. Dictatorship of one, advocated by Marx, is fundamentally the antithesis of collectivism, ironically enough.
This total dictator is now hiding from the Coronavirus pandemic that his own practice of the state caused. Xi views the state as a conduit to his power, instead of an intelligent, all-knowing substrate for an all empowered society. That state fascism has proven a danger to the entire world. Out!
5
Dear Chris and Steven... calm down please.
Pragmatically speaking.... a national leader up and pontificating is just a distraction to the real issues of the virus.
Operationally, in China.. there are are top level ministers in Beijing that are the hands on leaders responsible for addressing things like this.. both in policy and in communications... NOT the president.
But hey... no reason not to be taking shot after shot at China and it's leadership as it works to wrestle this beast of a virus into submission. /eyeroll.
2
Keeping a safe distance from the virus epidemic? Does he care what is happening to his people, or is he just playing 'a la Trump'?
2
How about STOP eating dogs, cats rats and bats!!!
3
Authoritarians can't beat virus's.
Research can. Put $$ back in science.
2
Where's Xi? I'll tell you where he is. First, a little background information on Chinese leadership protocol. In the 2008 Sichuan earthquake which had killed over 69,000 people then President Hu Jintao sent Premier Wen Jiabao to visit the victims. During the coronavirus outbreak, current President Xi Jinping sent Premier Li Keqiang to Wuhan. Unlike leaders in other countries, Chinese presidents are supposed to stay above it all like emperors of old and they have their premiers to do the PR work. To answer the question, Xi is in Beijing where he's expected to be and is managing the crisis from behind the scene.
I thought Chris Buckley has lived in China at one time and it's obvious he's no fan of the regime. Either he's ignorant of this protocol or playing ignorant to score points. We have a serious crisis going on in China which is also affecting the rest of the world. Since news of the outbreak, we've been inundated with stories after stories from the NYT of despair in Wuhan and what the Communist leadership isn't doing right. Is everything really that bad over there? Is China collapsing and is Xi applying for political asylum in Russia? Is the virus out of control and are we all going to die? Let's have more level headed reporting here and less yelling fire in a crowded theater.
3
@Michael
Sorry, Michael, but " level headed reporting" just doesn't make for good clickbait, though it is the responsibility of any media claiming to hold to journalistic standards to put threats in perspective, to shape the narrative and response in a way that serves the people, not to simply pander to human fears nor to minimize actual threats.
3
It wasn't the virus that makes this epidemic so serious, it's the Chinese Communist Party.
Expecting any day now, that Trump calls the whole Coronavirus a scam that China made up, for some genius reason that only he can understand. "Believe me."
1
Where's Xi? He is in China ensuring that the People's army containment and quarantine is strictly enforced. This is the time to keep politics out of this tragedy and have a laser sharp focus on fighting a common global enemy the Wuhan Corona virus (WCV) that can only be observed under an electron microscope.
1) WCV does not discriminate between a Chinese in Wuhan or a 60 year old US citizen in Wuhan.
2) What we have also learned is that the mortality rate so far is 2% and higher in those with a weaker immune system such as those 60 and above and the morbidity rate is a lot higher requiring hospitalization in many cases. China is fast building hospitals at the rate of 1 every 10 days.
3) China does not seem to welcome visits from any WHO or US experts. Makes sense as experts can help very little by going empty handed and without vaccines or FDA approved treatment.
4) US can offer to rapidly provide sanitized ready to eat balanced meal packets and fresh frozen vegetables, fruits and tons of 100% pomegranate juice to the epicenter of WCV with a population of 20 million. Also if there is a shortage of appropriate masks and detergent containing antibacterial soap along which should also have antiviral activity, the US should send them over.
5) As more and more people get infected more and more people could potentially die.
6) there are several unknowns at this time. One key unknown is the average time for which a person remains infectious from the time of estimated exposure.
2
Where's Xi? He is in China ensuring that the People's army containment and quarantine is strictly enforced. This is the time to keep politics out of this tragedy and have a laser sharp focus on fighting a common global enemy the Wuhan Corona virus (WCV) that can only be observed under an electron microscope.
1) WCV does not discriminate between a Chinese in Wuhan or a 60 year old US citizen in Wuhan.
2) What we have also learned is that the mortality rate so far is 2% and higher in those with a weaker immune system such as those 60 and above and the morbidity rate is a lot higher requiring hospitalization in many cases. China is fast building hospitals at the rate of 1 every 10 days.
3) China does not seem to welcome visits from any WHO or US experts. Makes sense as experts can help very little by going empty handed and without vaccines or FDA approved treatment.
4) US can offer to rapidly provide sanitized ready to eat balanced meal packets and fresh frozen vegetables, fruits and tons of 100% pomegranate juice to the epicenter of WCV with a population of 20 million. Also if there is a shortage of appropriate masks and detergent containing antibacterial soap along which should also have antiviral activity, the US should send them over.
5) As more and more people get infected more and more people could potentially die.
6) there are several unknowns at this time. One key unknown is the average time for which a person remains infectious from the time of estimated exposure.
2
Where's Xi? He is in China ensuring that the People's army containment and quarantine is strictly enforced. This is the time to keep politics out of this tragedy and have a laser sharp focus on fighting a common global enemy the Wuhan Corona virus (WCV) that can only be observed under an electron microscope. 1) WCV does not discriminate between a Chinese in Wuhan or a 60 year old US citizen in Wuhan. 2) What we have also learned is that the mortality rate so far is 2% and higher in those with a weaker immune system such as those 60 and above and the morbidity rate is a lot higher requiring hospitalization in many cases. China is fast building hospitals at the rate of 1 every 10 days. 3) China does not seem to welcome visits from any WHO or US experts. Makes sense as experts can help very little by going empty handed and without vaccines or FDA approved treatment. 4) US can offer to rapidly provide sanitized ready to eat balanced meal packets and fresh frozen vegetables, fruits and tons of 100% pomegranate juice to the epicenter of WCV with a population of 20 million. Also if there is a shortage of appropriate masks and detergent containing antibacterial soap along which should also have antiviral activity, the US should send them over. 5) As more and more people get infected more and more people could potentially die. 6) there are several unknowns at this time. One key unknown is the average time for which a person remains infectious from the time of estimated exposure.
2
Where’s Xi? The same place Mao went during the famines that killed 50 million due to the fact that the average citizen doesn't matter. Just like anywhere else.
Operant principle: run and hide. So many “leaders” are ignorant, impotent cowards at the core. Flee the danger zone. Do as I say, not as I do. Like ants floating down the river yelling, “Raise the drawbridge!” Such leadership ....
Thank you Mr. Xi. You’ve made a real mess of things for the world. Haven’t you learned from Putin, Trump, MbS, Assad, and all the rest of them that a coverup can only make things worse?
I shudder to think what Mr. Anti-Science Trump would do if the US were the epicenter of an event such as this coronavirus outbreak. Will we have to find out? He’s got such a great track record at considering expert advice.
2
Where's Xi? He is likely in China ensuring that the People's army containment and quarantine is strictly enforced. This is the time to keep politics out of this tragedy and have a laser sharp focus on fighting a common global enemy the Wuhan Corona virus (WCV) that can only be observed under an electron microscope. 1) WCV does not discriminate between a Chinese in Wuhan or a 60 year old US citizen in Wuhan. 2) What we have also learned is that the mortality rate so far is 2% and higher in those with a weaker immune system such as those 60 and above and the morbidity rate is a lot higher requiring hospitalization in many cases. China is fast building hospitals at the rate of 1 every 10 days. 3) China does not seem to welcome visits from any WHO or US experts. Makes sense as experts can help very little by going empty handed and without vaccines or FDA approved treatment. 4) US can offer to rapidly provide sanitized ready to eat balanced meal packets and fresh frozen vegetables, fruits and tons of 100% pomegranate juice to the epicenter of WCV with a population of 20 million. Also if there is a shortage of appropriate masks and detergent containing antibacterial soap along which should also have antiviral activity, the US should send them over. 5) As more and more people get infected more and more people could potentially die. 6) there are several unknowns at this time. 1 key unknown is the average time for which a person remains infectious from the time of estimated exposure.
2
Is he on a mountain or on a plane?
Winnie is such a brave bear. Xi not so much.
2
I guess we finally know what to call this particular, and particularly dreadful, coronavirus....Xivirus.
2
Xi figures correctly, out of sight, out of mind. He also thinks that the populations involved for China are minuscule. Thirdly, the Chinese response has been quick. They do not want credit for subduing the disease going anywhere but back to China. After all, this is their food handling debacle again.
1
This is precisely the reason why I refuse to travel to visit places like China and Cuba.
I will not buy into their lies. I will not empower them. I will not give them my money. Their governments are full of liars and manipulators. The truth is always suppressed. In Cuba the news in Cuba is all flowers and sugar. The people are clueless about the bad things happening in their own country. they live in a place where they aren't told the truth by the government and they live under a cloud of conspiracies and rumors.
When the truth is suppressed, that is what people resort to.
@GGirl ... "they live in a place where they aren't told the truth by the government and they live under a cloud of conspiracies and rumors."
Sounds familiar. Too much like USA under the Master Liar, Impeached Donald Trump.
Mr. Radchenko compared Mr. Xi’s actions to those of previous leaders in moments of crisis: Mao Zedong later in the Cultural Revolution or Deng Xiaoping after the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
How can this so-called expert compare epidemic to those two disasters? Its only comparable to flood in 1998 and sars in 2003.
Find a better expert please!
Coronavirus is a medical Chernobyl and could have similar results. All totalitarian regimes lie. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, the list goes on.
Mr. Xi has made himself alone the face of China. He takes credit for all thats good like Mr. Trump does with the economy, however, when things go wrong they want to be invisible. The coronavirus is having a devastating effect in China at many levels. It is much worse than the government admits. Deaths are much greater than reported. Many more people are effected. It is much more widely effected. It is having a worse effect on an already badly performing economy. Mr. Xi cannot be seen because this is shaking his control over China. Most likely not enough to end his control but very likely to shake it.
Coronavirus is or soon will be a pandemic. It began in China. It has become much worse because of China government lies. This lies on Mr. Xi and he knows it so he has become scarce.
China is in trouble and coronavirus makes this trouble much greater. Mr. Xi has made himself the face of China. He cannot hide from this.
4
(sigh) No, Trump is not Xi. The US is not China.
These silly comparisons demonstrate typical American ego-centric hubris. It's all about their anger, emotions, etc., on any particular day. Today it's Trump. Before it was Bush. Soon it will be someone else. Poor things. How do they manage?
2
In a few weeks we could be having the same conversation about Donald Trump. That may be the only good thing to come out of all this.
@Alex how is that a good thing? It would mean we have a medical crisis with many people in jeopardy and you are looking for a silver lining? Trump haters are irrational. I understand not liking him, but get real.
The potential for political push back is limited. Spent 12 months in China from 1985 to 2012. CFO of engineering co with offices in Shanghai and Beijing. The Chinese engineers and managers worship the government to foreigners. Speak NO evil, privately I think a bit more critical. But leave no doubt socially China is totally ruled top down. There biggest fear is outsiders.
Bottom line however is the 1 to 5% upper crust these educated and successful people , I do not see them bailing on the party. Xi MAY be sacrificed but no way the educated top of the pile plans to upset the system.
Don’t see any signs of a new generation or a challenger to Xi. Guessing Xi and his pals sacrifice Li and his lieutenants, pronounce a new beginning, universal communication, lock up and even execute a few for “ failing the people”.
I know a certain overweight western Politico who is jealous.
Where is Xi Jinping -- the place where all cowards go when faced with real issues -- he's in hiding, leaving someone else to clean up and take the blame for the mess that his corrupt government has created by lying about and concealing the extent of the coronavirus.
The thinking part of the world knew when China shut down a city of millions and allowed no transport in or out of the city that there was a deadly crisis that was already out of control.
This is Chinese version of Chernobyl -- the cover up that will allow many people to be infected and die because the government cannot admit its own failures.
Does anyone doubt that Trump and his minions would do the same since Trump cannot accept failure on any level and is a lying criminal?
3
Some years ago I attended a lecture by the photographer Edward Burtynsky - who drove across China with a crew to photographic China for a book. ("China" was published by Steidl in 2005.)
Someone in the audience asked Burtynsky if anything shocked him about China.
Burtynsky answered that he and his crew often drove across China for days without seeing a single bird.
Pollution has killed much of the bird population of China.
President Xi is hiding because of the Coronavirus. You'd think he'd be hiding because China has become an economic powerhouse partly because China's leaders are okay with poisoning their citizens by befouling the country's air, soil and water.
Any decent person would be ashamed of having done this.
34
“You can’t stop progress” is a sad human truth, and nearby India is just as guilty of polluting for progress that is spelled with a capital $$$$$$. The West is not far behind, and Brazil’s President says he plans on clearing much more or the Amazon rainforests for agriculture. Japan is going back to coal-fired plants as well. Progress is unstoppable....Get used to more pollution for progress.
1
@GeorgeN Get yourself an education. I'm not a China fan - but the reasons behind China's pollution is the US/EU factory exported to China so US consumers can have their cheap products pollution free and the greedy corps get their margins.
So many ignorant people in here from the Northern Hemisphere ...sheeesh ...
2
@Jason those factories are Chinese factories. They are taking jobs out of the US now.
1
Every time I get a chance, I will remind folks this is Communist China, a totalitarian nation...nothing more, nothing less, the place we have allowed Capitalists to sell OUR soul to. I wouldn't give a plug nickel to any statistics coming out of that country.
36
Trade war.
Hong Kong.
Taiwan.
Now the Coronavirus.
.
General Secretary Xi is having a rough second term. Five bucks says he'll opt for early retirement before his enemies in the Communist Party retire him themselves.
.
It's discouraging to see how many commenters use this story to slam Trump. He's likely the most offensive President we've ever had, but trying to liken him to China's communists only shows how little most of us know about that malign regime.
.
Another five bucks says most of us had never heard of Wuhan before last month, despite the fact that its population is larger than NYC's. That's how much most of us know about China.
.
It's time for Americans to start understanding what's coming at us from Beijing. When Xi goes, there are 100 more just like him to take over. And they all want to bury us.
22
@West Coaster Well, "most" of us may not know about China and their criminal regime but many of us do know not only China but also Russia and Saudi Arabia and very plainly the ruthless, evil, and criminality of our own government which was on full display this week.
If you don't think that Trump is comparable to Xi -- you haven't been paying attention.
3
Emperor Xi, having decreed from on high that his underlings stop the virus in its tracks, now sits majestically on his throne in the cordoned-off Forbidden City, safe from infection and in a perfect position to blame those underlings for failure.
He's hoping that the Chinese people won't conclude that failure to stop the epidemic means that Heaven has withdrawn its mandate for his rule.
So it's been in China for more than two thousand years.
14
China, and many other parts of the world, are acting as though it’s better for their economy and stock markets - if the entire city of Wuhan were to be killed off by this virus rather than tell the truth or help these people. If China really cared about its people in Wuhan - then they would have allowed the international community to help with this virus weeks ago. WHO has been praising China over and over, could that be because of the mass amounts of funding they just received by China, rather than helping these people. Praising a country where they are now physically throwing people in quarantines / camps, which the new study shows almost half of the original infected people were indeed infected at the hospitals. Sounds like the WHO also only cares about money, and these people now in quarantines will most likely be infected in these quarantines like the hospitals.
These quarantines will be proven later as the reason the disease spread to so many people and so fast. These are quarantines but more like jails that will kill you with a virus. Are American hospitals prepared for this? I noticed none of the hospitals are being named in America where the Wuhan patient’s are being tested or monitored. We are already starting to censor our news about this disease as well.
6
@Mike you understand the worst situation in China as well. Moreover, the CCP has pushed the mainland Chinese flood to HKG because the Medicare system in mainland is not sustainable ; it will be disastrous to seven million people in the territory while medical workers in HKG have faced a open border with China
Quite possibly he is a man living in a sealed bubble. Fearing his enemies might use the virus to attack him.
A nation led by a mad man might see this as an opportunity for regime change world wide. A way to deal with enemies.
Of course it could happen to his regime as well.
2
Reading the early paragraphs of this article, my focus was drawn to what seems a secondary point in the discussion of internal CCP political sensitivity. A couple of phrases, "the June 4th incident of 1989" and referring to the "armed crackdown" on Tiananmen Square. My assumption is that Mr. Buckley and Mr. Myers risk revocation of their visas or the loss of access to Chinese authorities, if they were to write in plain English about the slaughter of hundreds (probably thousands) of citizens at the afore-mentioned Tiananmen Square, on June 4th & 5th, 1989. This oblique reference to that horrific massacre of innocents must delight the bloody hierarchy in Beijing. By slithering through the concealment created by adapting the CCP's preferred phraseology, the writer's can protect their professional advantages & continue their assignments while insuring that the heroes that died in hopes of a Chinese democracy will sooner be erased from that society's political memory. This is a terrific illustration of the mutual corruption demanded by the Xi regime as a condition of continued commerce. This unchallenged substitution of bland euphemism for the unflinching truth creates the oxygen that Xi, Trump & Putin need to thrive. These corrupt compromises have metastasized throughout "journalism" & have become standard practice in American political commentary. This is the same toxin produced by the Wuhan nCoronavirus. It fills the abcess destroying our democracy.
6
I can imagine the stable genius placing himself in the midst of danger.
3
Not just limited to so called authoritarian systems e.g. diseases [ communicable diseases much more difficult in literate surroundings ...],
spread by nutrition ,or governmentally silence [knowledge limited by purpose ] about carcinogenic materials as asbestos ...
and last not but least the WHO information at Occupational Health a rather mentally disturbing picture geographically :production /type of plants and needed labour force ,ja indeed “forced” isn’t exceptional [ e.g.just to have a living ]...
China is a military dictatorship and the head of China is like all dictators a coward . The Chinese need freedom from this government. If the leadership in China had wisdom they would create a more democratic government. But you can make men who rule by authoritarian barbarism and kill those who oppose them gain wisdom . This virus will not just kill people but it will kill consumerism because everything is made in China with cheap labor
And it is tragic that the Chinese worker have been used by international corporations as slave labor .
If only the Corporations had wisdom beyond their bottomline . But Corporations are also ruled by barbaric capitalist who only care about money and profit. Until there is wisdom men will act out greed and corruption . And the threat from GREED is far greater than any virus ......
2
Three private flights from China arrived in NZ in last ten days according to the NZ herald newspaper. And no one seems to know who was on the flights. Maybe President Xi was on one of them. Just a thought.
4
@CK Very much like the planes that flew on 9/11 collecting the Bin Laden family and spiriting them out of the country so they wouldn't pay the price for the attack on the US.
@CK Clearing customs in NZ should now take about 3 weeks (unless you are ill).
He is the supreme leader and also an elderly pensioner; there is no cure for this virus; contagious viruses don't discriminate; doesn't matter how rich or powerful you are - a contagious virus doesn't know the difference between rich and poor, power or poverty; and will kill whomever is in its path. All humans are vulnerable to contagious viruses.
2
With all the knowledge gained from SARS epidemic 17 years ago it is shocking that trade in live wild animals hasn't been prohibited in China. SARS jumped from civets to humans, and live civets were also traded in Wuhan. A country that incarcerates and monitors millions should be capable of clamping down on this abomination and debunk the superstitions of positive health effects related to eating these poor animals, also including pangolins, rhinos and sharks. We should pray to god that the virus won't make it to Africa or India.
6
Dr. Li Wenliang is a hero. He has a pregnant wife and was going to have another child in the summer. He is real hero for what he has done. What about his wife and child? Where are they? Should we be starting GoFund Me campagne to help the family of a man who died because he spoke the truth?
1
Dr. Li is indeed a hero because he spoke the truth, for which he will be long remembered and revered.
Dr. Li did not die because he spoke the truth; sadly, he died of an illness. The illness was neither caused nor prevented by his speaking the truth, it was a coincidence; he could have caught the virus and died as have so many others whether he spoke the truth or not, or even knew anything about the disease or not.
Importantly, Dr. Li’s heroism would be no less if he had overcome his infection and recovered. He is a hero because of what he did, and not a martyr because he died.
1
Looks like the beginning of the end for Xi and probably the Chinese Communist Party. You can't fool all of the people all of the time. Of course, the Chinese people aren't fooled. Neither is the rest of the world.
1
@NorthernVirginia Wishful thinking I think. Armed soldiers in the streets near your home will quiet a lot of protests. Arresting or shooting a few will also silence a lot of unarmed people.
So I am reading this article about President Xi, China, and the coronavirus and I am thinking:
If President Xi Jinping is having trouble managing the coronavirus spread in China--with plenty of rumors that the epidemic is being underestimated by the Chinese government--imagine how safe we can feel when the virus fully hits the U.S.
As I see it, in the U.S, a perfect storm is brewing:
First, we have the politically inexperienced, willfully ignorant, incompetent President Trump at the helm, who more often lies than tells the truth, has demonized science and evidence, blames others and takes no responsibility when things go wrong, and basically, has no idea what he is doing as president and really doesn't care.
Second, Trump is slavishly backed up and reinforced, no matter what he does, by the Republican Party and mighty Fox News that turns a blind eye to Trump's failings and destructive impulses, and refuses to let Trump be held accountable, no matter the damage done.
Third, let's not forget the individualistic, libertarian, rebellious American people. How will they behave when ordered to be quarantined? Especially if they are truly sick with the coronavirus. How much will they care about infecting other people? Or might they be so worried in our have versus have-not society that they don't have enough money to make ends meet and/or may be fired at their jobs, so they go to work anyway, no matter how sick & the consequences?
What is the answer Republicans? Pray?
4
@PB Their answer has already escaped the lips of the money launderer now Sec. of Commerce Wilbur Ross -- the virus will force manufacturing back to the US which will mean more money and jobs and a rise in the 401K's of the greedy saps in the general population who will defend anything as long as the market continues to be up.
If anything positive can come from this peehaps it's Xi's downfall and greater freedom of speech.
1
A no-show during a humanitarian crisis of this scale shows what an out-of-touch leader Xi is.
@ljc Not out of touch. Just doesn't care!
Despots usually hide from truths, why would he be any different?
4
If you look at China objectively, and not through Trumpian eyes, Xi has been a miraculous leader for China. As Americans, we love to point fingers at China over concerns ranging from free speech to their authoritarian government in general, while half our population rapidly supports President Trump, who has created a faux reality in America simply to enable his political career. Which is worse, Xi or Trump. I say Trump. The coronavirus is a very serious situation that could happen anywhere. Certainly, if it happened in the U.S. to the extent it's affecting China, Trump would still be out playing golf. Economically, China - a wonderful trading partner for the U.S. - has been slandered for "stealing" American technology (they haven't, it was handed over voluntarily), stealing American jobs (complete nonsense, American businesses gleefully moved jobs to China) and stealing American money (a reference to the trade deficit, as though it's China's fault we have such high demand for their products). In reality, China plays a large role in providing products that drive our economy. Xi has had to endure our idiot president for over 3 years now, plus the demands of a nation of over 1 billion people, protesters in Hong Kong (that's died down) and now the coronavirus. While I don't support authoritarian rule, it's hard to criticize it when we have the same thing here in our (once) great democracy.
3
Can’t really much disagree, politically...
But, something like the coronavirus, culturally and legally, is much more likely to jump from animals to humans in a place like China where animals and people are pushed into close proximity and hygiene and sanitation is marginal. It’s hard to imagine throngs of people in big city America out doing their ordinary shopping amid cages of wild and domestic live animals and humans spitting in the streets (and worse). The health department would rightly shut them down. What happens out of view here, on farms and ranches and in processing plants, is another matter of course. See lettuce, Romaine.
Now, a thought experiment: a Chinese Sinclair Lewis writes a an expose like The Jungle. Would this be published, enjoy success as a best seller and be assigned for decades in the classroom as required reading? I would not expect anything that could be framed as a criticism of the authoritarian Chinese government would be allowed, and the author would most likely suffer for his “crimes” against the state.
@Aurora
As much as I despise our President, it's simply ridiculous to compare his authoritarian tendencies with those of Xi, who actually rules as an autocrat with unchecked power, supported by the corrupt membership of the Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese government-controlled media blame “foreign entities” for publicizing the public health efforts, arrest and death of the physician.
President Trump gave his word that the Chinese tell the truth.
Once trust is breached many times, it is difficult to restore once.
1
Remember the good old days when it took more than angry Tweets for the NYT to begin coverage like this?
Goodness knows, I'm no fan of authoritarian regimes and especially the direction so many countries are taking, including our GOP, but perhaps we should see how other countries do before condemning China's efforts and Xi's leadership. They are buying us precious time and we seem to squandering it.
@Bobn Ah it doesn't begin with an angry Tweet. It begins with a report of China's leader at a public event.
1
China is a thousands of years of old civilization and their people and leaders may act and handle things in their own way. If their leader is not visible in the public but is providing resources and supplies I think that should be more than enough and it is the Eastern way doing things.
2
This article typifies the double standard being applied to this possible "pandemic". The undercurrent is that the "type of government" that is China is not equipped to handle the crisis because it is not Western, or not the United States.
How ironic, because trump wants the US to be more like China in the type of governmental system.....regulated to the point of controlling everything, but subverting the population by not being able to manage because the resources are being applied elsewhere.
The unspoken truth is that China has too many people and does not care that there is a culling of the herd... after all, the norovirus is not cancer, which is possibly the last frontier of saving lives as a domestic policy.
1
I think about all the "medical generals" issuing orders from a high, safe distance, and then I think about the people quarantined in windowless cabins below decks on cruise ships. The generals breathe fresh air and the quarantined aboard ships breathe the poisonous recirculated air shared with the sick and dying.
There is a lesson for all of us in this: Don't get sick. Who knows what innovations they may come up with to protect themselves.
2
@dutchiris They are dying on cruise ships? Where?
Nowhere am I able to find an answer to why both SARS and Coronavirus viral outbreaks in humans, have originated in China. There are more primitive, less hygienic counties in Africa and Asia with less sophisticated medical facilities. What is it about China that has caused these two viral outbreaks to jump across from animals to humans in that part of the world?
7
@George Perhaps it is because of the combination of the wet markets, population density, and their recent economic success. The environment around the wet market is a petri dish for things to grow and mutate in and their population is becoming much more mobile due to financial success. The mobility accelerates the spread to other parts of China and around the world.
@tnbiker Thanls for yr reply. H/ever SARS came from bats not farm animals so I'm still perplexed.
Soon, we too will have such a wonder system to operate under when the Democrats nominate a Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren and or Michael Bloomberg. Nothing works as well as an authoritarian state headed by an autocrat like Mr Xi. Clearly Mr Bloomberg has the most experience with being an autocrat and already lives like one. I can't wait to see who wins!
3
@Other
No worries. Bloomberg banned Big Gulps in NYC. He'll just ban viruses in the whole country.
@Other As if Trump hasn't praised China's handling of this? Is Trump a Dem?
1
China under an authoritarian government hamstrings it’s national problem solving ability by severely restricting freedom of speech and to some extent thought. The nation has a lot of minds that, given increased freedom of expression, can make China far more innovative and responsive to their society and empire in times of competition as well as emergency. Their government’s repression of speech and micro management made the response to the spread of the virus ineffective.
4
@Bill Wilson
When you are more concerned about appearances (ex., how you look to the world) than the safety of your own citizens, this is what happens.
1
As we watch the administration dismantle government agencies created to foster health & safety, America behold your future. Corrections please if I am uninformed, but it doesn’t appear China has many regulations and that’s where these plagues always seem to begin. (Remember all that poison dog food China dumped on our market?)
Let’s hope all those who gleefully & greedily drive the movement to destroy the buffer that safety measures provide will face up to the life-altering consequences before it is too late.
3
"Dear leader" Xi may has not only receded into the shadows but it is clear he is determined to keep the rest of the world in the dark. His refusal to accept president Trumps offer of CDC virologists means that there will be no quick end to the hysteria now gripping his nation or how many are at risk. No one yet knows the source of the virus, how it is transmitted, its incubation period or how virulent it is.
What we do know is that government officials quashed the warning issued by Dr. Li Wenlian, someone brave enough to step into the light with a stark warning that has proven prophetic. It's also proof that China has learned nothing from the SARS epidemic it foisted on the world nearly 20 years ago. Worse, there is no reason to believe that something worse won't emerge in the future.
Perhaps worries of coronavirus becoming a pandemic are unfounded but its adverse impact on the world are no less worrisome. China is a major supplier of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment to the US. What happens when those factories are forced to shut down?
4
The situation in China has become so severe and out of control mainly because of the initial suppression of the real danger it poses by the government.
All dictatorial countries have the tendency to suppress bad news. Chernobyl, SARS and now Corona virus. This shows the value of a free press and the need for complete transparency on the part of the government to contain and handle such catastrophe.
When we call news media as fake news and treat press as the enemy of the people can we be reassured that such efforts of suppression cannot happen here?
2
@The Observer The media is attacked here but hardly suppressed. Trump attacks haven't harmed the NYT, MSNBC or CNN coverage. YES a free press works even when one doesn't like it.
Not in any way to diminish the suffering from and impact of the Wuhan coronavirus, but let's keep a little perspective. The C.D.C. estimates that up to 42.9 million people got sick during the 2018-2019 flu season, 647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died. In the current season, half over, it is estimated there have been at least 22 million flu illnesses, 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths from flu.
While we appropriately pay serious attention to the evolution of Wuhan coronavirus, let us not let it cloud out the ongoing risks from flu and the need to act accordingly. If quarantining cities in China, cruise ships, and others is sensible and legitimate, maybe we should consider the same for anti-vaxxers here in America.
As with the 40,000 annual deaths in vehicle crashes, the flu is not a "sexy" news story, so does not get nearly the coverage deserved. On the other hand, the Wuhan coronavirus, makes for excellent clickbait. That is not to deny the legitimate stories, many hooked to the unknown elements. Novelty and the unknown get attention, until what was once novel becomes the new normal. That's human nature. Think of suicide bombers. In the mid 2000s when they started happening as more than a rare "curiosity", each had huge news coverage, complete with psychological "analyses", biographies, detailed descriptions, etc. Now when there is a suicide bombing, it is simply covered as is any other bombing, "suicide" simply being consigned to being an adjective.
2
Xi Jinping is thinking ahead of the current crisis.
Every crisis presents an opportunity. Mr. Xi will not waste this opportunity to reform the government after this health crisis in efficiency, transparency, and responsiveness. Mr. Xi is thinking ahead on how to handle the coming 2nd round of trade talk with us. Mr. Xi is pondering how to improve the relationship with EU. And Mr. Xi is dead serious about social harmony and "no poor people left behind in a rising economy."
President Xi is the leader of China in charge of everything. And Premier Li is the government leader in charge of administrative affair including health and environment. Mr. Li gets his hands dirty just like his famous predecessor Premier Wen, who often visited disastrous areas in times of crisis.
CDC is offering a team to 'observe and help if possible'? Frankly, if was the head honcho of Chinese public health, I'd be saying 'thanks but no thanks' too. Particularly since Americans seem to believe that Chinese science is back somewhere in the Middle Ages.
How about the US pitches in and supports the WHO - which many other countries are already doing? The UK has so far seconded a fifty strong team of microbiologists, infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists. Plus $10 million cash. It's a start. Better than moaning on the sidelines.
2
Is he busy filling out forms to join in the Democratic primaries? Would he make it to the debate stage in time for Super Tuesday?
1
@Old Mate Odd because Trump praises China's handling of this. Is Trump a Dem?
If art reflected life, then just as the microbes put an end to the world domination of the Martian invaders in HG Wells’ “War of the Worlds”, this flu just might derail Xi’s pretensions to the title of dictator for life.
What specific incident suffices to stir a population to general resistance generally becomes clear only after the fact. The perceived failure to put the people’s health ahead of the ruling party’s prestige might damage the trust and confidence in government that even autocrats rely on to stay in power.
So, it is hard to see at this early juncture if this health care debacle is the first chapter leading to popular unrest that forces change or merely a temporary manifestation of unease before the status quo is restored.
In addition to the current epidemic whose extent is not fully known, there is the very real threat that the virus can become endemic like the flu virus and never fully eradicated, coming back seasonally, mutating to defy easy vaccination and cure.
@RSSF Might already have been there before being identified. Cancer was killing how many before being actually known?
There is a great amount of risk in China and this includes Beijing and everyone who lives there. Revealed during the Hong Kong protests was the reminder that the majority of mainlanders are patriotic Communists. The only true rivals that Xi Jinping has are sitting in jail: the charismatic Bo Xilai and the patriot Zhou Yongkang. Isolation and medical treatment are the model. The international community should act early rather than late and make sure that Wuhan has the medical supplie it needs. Those medical workers and citizens are the front line.
@Jeff Stockwell I thought offers had been made and Xi was refusing. Am I wrong?
@tnbiker
I am not sure. But at some point the jurisdiction changes for the better or the worst.
I shudder contemplating what Trump's response to a coronavirus epidemic in America would look like.
What I know with absolute certainty is that a coverup would begin even before treatment was made available to Americans and any faults would immediately be blamed on others.
I'm appalled but not surprised by Trump's fawning praise of Xi even in the face of his utter failure to contain the coronavirus.
4
When the supreme leader dies; I reckon China and Hong Kong will become a democracy. The people want more freedom of speech. Knowledge is power.
@CK
"When the supreme leader dies; I reckon China and Hong Kong will become a democracy".
That was supposed to happen when they were granted admission the the WTO 20 years ago.
@CK Didn't happen after Mao. Hard to over throw a power when it controls police military and media. Ever hear of N Korea and its line of dictators? Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and other dictatorships will become democracies when?
I note most folks wearing face masks but no gloves? Wouldn’t it help prevent the spread of the virus to wear gloves of some kind too?
1
@Donna Tuke The masks are worn to give people a false sense of being "protected" as would wearing gloves. If wearing a mask was all that it took to prevent this illness from spreading the quick fix remedy would be to drop them from the skies by the millions so everyone would have them to wear.
1
Notwithstanding the casualties and widespread suffering inflicted upon tens of millions over the years during the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and various other movements, Mao remained the top leader until his death, and his likeness to this day presides over the Tian An Men square. That painful era never examined. Will Xi, following in his footsteps, get off with impunity as well ? As a Chinese born person, I often wonder if it is within the Chinese nature to tolerate authoritarian rule, or is it the manipulative strength of this system that makes it so enduring?
Incidentally, Wuhan was the site of the October 10, 1911 uprising that sparked the Sun-Yat-Sen led revolution overthrowing four thousand years of dynastic rule in China. Sun’s last words on his death bed were, ‘the Revolution has not been completely successful; Comrades, we need to put in more effort’.
3
This isn't surprising from a medical perspective and to be honest something that we see in most countries as far back as the kings of England fleeing the plague. I can bet the most secluded man on earth if this comes in any numbers to the US will be our own President.
3
If he were very smart, Xi would show up at Li WenLiang funeral to demonstrate he is a real leader.
Alas, it is unlikely. Being a product of the Cultural Revolution, Xi learned self-preservation, in every sense, is the first principle. He would continue to rule with an iron fist from a distance, using every excuse to purge his potential rivals and suppress any dissent. That makes him a small man in the Chinese annals
1
@Bos An American President or any American leader went to what Ebola funeral? They products of the Cultural Revolution?
Trade war.
Hong Kong.
Taiwan.
Now the Coronavirus. No doubt the extent of the deaths and infections is far greater than Beijing is telling us.
.
General Secretary Xi is having a rough second term. Five bucks says he'll opt for early retirement before his enemies in the Communist Party retire him themselves.
.
It's discouraging to see how many commenters use this story to slam Trump. He's likely the most offensive President we've ever had, but trying to liken him to China's communists only shows how little most of us know about that malign regime.
.
Another five bucks says most of us had never heard of Wuhan before last month, despite the fact that its population is larger than NYC's. That's how much most of us know about China.
.
It's time for Americans to start understanding what's coming at us from Beijing. When Xi goes, there are 100 more just like him to take over. And they all want to bury us.
5
@West Coaster Problem is Trump has praised Xi's and China's handling of this. Enemies of Xi in the Party lose power quickly.
Darkness darkness.
It’s becoming much easier to identify leaders who prefer the cover of darkness over the light of day.
At home and abroad.
May a silver lining be that this epidemic takes the autocratic Xi down a peg or two.
If I were a Chinese citizen, I would be furious at the government right now.
1
We now have 4 days in a row without a new high.
Number of new cases:
Feb 3: 3239
Feb 4: 3927
Feb 5: 3723
Feb 6: 3163
Feb 7: 3436
Feb 8: 2676
Feb 9: ?
That is called the turning point; it’s what happens when an epidemic is losing its battle with the health care professionals.
1
@Ivan Hope you are correct.
The new virus broke out in Wuhan, with a population of 11 million. By contrast, Houston has a population of 2.3 million. What happens when the food runs out in Wuhan?
1
just let the CDC in, hopefully they can stop the epidemic, then he can take all the credit from a secret bunker or whatever. Please!
So many armchair policymakers. So many. Want to do something this? Donate to a fund helping the PEOPLE of Wuhan. Thanks.
2
Xi is a "strongman" leader, just like Trump, Duterte, Boris, Putin, and MBD. They all talk big and exhort violence, but are actually weak and small -- hence their desperation and all-consuming need to "appear" mighty. It is their oxygen and they believe they will stop existing without it. (Btw, most people in the world including small children and old women are more secure than these men are, and have no need for armies or weapons in order to feel safe. )
Unfortunately, "strongman" tactics only work well for situations like killing citizens, detaining them in camps, and torturing and disposing of dissidents by dismembering them.
"Strongman" tactics do exactly zilch in the face of viruses. This is why Xi and his friends will fail, resulting in many deaths. This is our world, yet we have allowed a handful of small, scared men to ruin it and kill untold numbers through their cowardice, greed and hate.
But it will be okay in the end, as everyone dies, so will these men. May they reap every inch of what they have done for an eternity.
2
@Bear Trump is not just like these other guys! You must be joking. We have a 2020 election coming up. He can be gone then unlike these other guys if enough states cast electoral votes against him. Use your vote!
It's interesting to compare and contrast the contracted narrative and obvious underreporting of incidences of the Wuhan epidemic to the CDC's more capitalistic push to overreport flu cases in order to get more people to buy their vaccine.
It's also disturbing that US media sources aren't being more transparent with reporting the fumigating taking place in the streets, suspected coronavirus patients being locked in their apartments and the severity of police patrols, mask enforcement, overwhelmed cremation centers, etc.
If they're trying to contain a mass panic in the US, they're doing well. It's astonishing how every other day the general population feels so removed from "the other side of the world" until a virus kicks in and suddenly they're perceived as neighbors.
1
Plant based diets prevent suffering.
The Eaters live healthier lives and prevent certain diseases. The Workers. The sentient non human animals. The air, land, water. The entire planet’s atmosphere.
Diminish meat based diets and so too will we diminish zoonotic infections like this corona virus (and SARS.., not to mention heart diseases, etc)
When will we learn, friends?
14
@Joel we’re the zoobiotics on Earth, and the virus is just a simple part of an immunobiology. The weight of their immunological mass, along with bacteria, dwarfs the weight of humans.
2
@Joel proper hygiene and food safety measures also work 🙄
The population of China is 1.4 Billion.
Now, what percentage of that 1.4 Billion are effected? Exactly.
3
What percentage of that 1.4 billion and of the world population are immune to this virus? Exactly.
7
@Scott
If it was you it would matter. But it’s not so it does not.
2
@Scott All Chinese are affected by poor planning, which points straight to its leadership and its sycophants.
Talking numbers only is a poor understanding of the problem itself.
2
The minimum that was needed to fight the menace of Coronavirus outbreak was compile transparency and sharing of common global concerns which could have helped muster international effort to contain the pandemic threat. Instead, the Xi Jinping led authoritarian regime in China resorted to a massive cover up effort to hide the truth,even silencing the Whistle-blower doctor by allegedly shooting him dead,or resorting to a sort of loyalty test to categorise friends and foes in the international arena. This shows that the Xi Jinping leadership is confronting an existential crisis of its life and alomgwith the Hong Kong protests the handling of the coronavirus will determine its future despite the life long tenure included in the constitution.
26
@Prof. Jai Prakash Sharma
Sorry to break the bad news to you professor. In the 2008 Sichuan earthquake which over 69,000 people died there were outpouring of anger over the government's slow response to the crisis and the shoddy construction of schools where hundreds of students perished. The same regime is still here today and will probably be around tomorrow.
3
"...stepping back into the shadows, while remaining firmly in charge."
Each major "event" brings many opportunities. For quotes and experts. Descriptions flow; some, almost poetic. Generalizable, usable explanations all too often remain rare. Information can and does creates "closure." For many. Insights, understanding(s), and rarer wisdom are wont to stimulate additional questions and their inherent quests. Whatever Xi's steps, intent(s), transparent or opaque- wherever- its pace, directions, and temporality, amongst other relevant considerations, he is not "immune" from realities' ever-present, interacting dimensions: Uncertainties. Unpredictabilities. Randomness. Outliers and their trajectories. The lack of total control. As is evidenced currently. Notwithstanding the efforts of one or of many; timely or not. Whatever their name(s). Roles. Powers. Positioning(s).The unimaginable can BEcome imagined. The unthought and the unspoken gain experienced existence. Dimensionality. BEcome expressed. Successfully, or not. But THEY then exist. Infectious in their spread. However long IT may take.
And come out of the "shadows." And once out...
Impunity does not come with immunity!
9
Any hint, however light, that Xi may have his power diminished if the outbreak becomes out of control, if it is not considered as such now, will proved to be wrong. Personally, I have infinite faith that those on top there will remain on top.
After all what is the point of winning a revolution for the proletariat if one cannot pass the power onto the next generation, the second red generation, of which Mr. Xi is one.
7
@Notmypresident Apparently "winning the revolution" means not having freedom of assembly or speech, as well as vulnerability to arbitrary arrest. It means that a doctor who warned what was happening at a time when the virus could have been contained was forced to confess that he was lying and spreading social disorder, only to die as proof that he was originally correct. Xi/autocracy = good; Trump/democracy = bad.
1
@Notmypresident
Communism has never been 'for the people' and has never had an organized succession routine.
The case fatality data is limited and known to be incorrect. Because the epidemic is in the growth phase it is incorrect to calculate the fatality rate from current fatalities divided by current case counts. Fatalities lag case confirmation by about 2 weeks on average. So to correct for case count growth the correct calculation is to divide current fatalities by cases 2 weeks prior. That gives a much higher number, in between SARS and MERS.
38
@Federalist
The flaw of that approach is that initially the only cases that gets diagnosed are the ones that are so severe that they end up in the hospital. So the early case count numbers are grossly undercounted, whereas the death counts 2 weeks later have much less undercounts.
What we do know is that the number of new infections per day is going down whereas the number of deaths should continue to rise for another 8-10 days - so we do expect to go up a bit from the current 2%. Then when the testing catches up and we begin getting a better idea of the number of people who got infected and never even had much of any symptoms (silent cases) it will go down again.
4
@Ivan
We certainly don't know that the number of new infections per day is going down.
3
@Ivan You point that the denominator total cases does not include many mild cases is correct, but even so the 2% number given out publicly, which is the fatality rate among serious hospital admitted cases that get tested, is for sure too low. Later when the full case count is clarified by population surveys for an immune response, the fatality rate will become more accurate. As you point out the case count now is confirmed cases serious enough to be admitted and get one of the scarce tests. Unfortunately the confirmed count is more a function of testing capability, than actual underlying case count, so leveling off says almost nothing about the true case count.
One thing that gives some indication of the chaos now ensues in China is this: local police forces of different jurisdictions/provinces are robbing each other's face mask supplies like highwaymen.
Drove of police cars would surround an armored truck carrying 300,000 face masks and wouldn't let it pass until they leave behind 200,000. These things are so prolific that the central government ordered them to stop. None obeyed.
How will this turn out? Who knows. A truce was declared recently calling a stop to these activities. But if supplies and confidence level continue to dwindle, it's every man for himself.
54
Good thing the world has alternative manufacturing nations ready to take up the slack. ?
3
@Tony Laibach - - - Where's John Landis or Harold Ramis to make a movie about this kind of craziness?
If one takes a look at the official figures released each day, one will find that the mortality rate is always around 2%. Always. Every day. Talk about having it under control!
On Feb 1 at 23:39, the CCP accidentally leaked these figures online: 154,023 confirmed cases, 24,589 deaths. Putting the mortality rate closer to 16%. These figures have since been deleted. Was it a mistake or were they real? Who knows.
76
@Tony Laibach
If those numbers had anything to them then we would have seen a lot more cases and deaths outside of China. Outside of China there has been 372 reported cases (including 29 from Hong Kong). From those there has been reports of 8 severe cases plus 2 deaths and 36 complete recoveries. The similar numbers for China is 37204 cases, 6188 severe, 812 deaths and 2930 complete recoveries. If China's numbers were to reflect the 100 fold difference seen in reported cases we would expect them to report 200 deaths 800 severe cases and 3600 complete recoveries. They are over that expectation with their death and severe case numbers and under with their complete recoveries. That is exactly what you would expect if they are missing diagnosis of a lot of mild cases (where people recover on their own without ever being diagnosed).
4
@Tony Laibach
Even in China it would be hard to hide 24,000 deaths from 2019nCov. Maybe this is China's daily mortality rate (.000019).
@Tony Laibach Yeah, but only one person outside China has died and that was in the Phillipines... so 16% - we should be seeing it in the American and other victims now.
1
It’s not easy!
Technology and economic growth is one thing, but changing one’s culture? That’s something different.
Ask America about its guns. How many more gun related deaths were there in America than in other developed countries? More than the coronavirus? If the world would balance individual liberty and community interests as vociferously as it responds to a pandemic, we wouldn’t be in a situation of needing to shut down economic activity and causing global trade disruptions.
85
@Daniel Kauffman Most gun violence in America is committed by those who illegally possess guns.
For a while Xi has seemed invincible. He snubbed out political opponents such as Bo Xilai and others in the name of fighting corruption. He silenced critics and minorities by locking them up. He changed term limits to allow himself to remain president for life - and he is only 66. He employs an iron-fist in media and info control. Yet just as he appeared to have gained absolute control came the Coronavirus, which spreads like wildfire partly due to his tight reign. It all unravels and flies in his face. What goes around comes around.
120
But what about . . . ?
It seems as though western media, NYT included, would rather have Xi on a pedestal making speeches and tweeting brief missives. Why? A premier is better off commanding real work. There’s no need for him to be in front of camera and lights. China’s response at its scale has been stellar. US can’t even run an election without hiccups with its game show host at the helm.
32
Seriously? No constitutional term limits and unlimited power. Yep, let’s not criticize the man hard at work at damage control.
46
@Moree Spinaro absolutely ridiculous has their response been stellar. First off, this outbreak could have been largely constrained back in December. It was known about in Wuhan as well as Shanghai where several lab technicians confirmed it. Furthermore, the CCP called the outbreak "rumors" sending an unthinkable amount of people to travel over Chinese New Year knowing that they are at risk. The CCP engaged in massive censorship and disinformation ultimately denying people of organic communication, a basic human right that can actually help people protect themselves. They killed every channel that would allow communities the ability to deal with a crisis and said "trust us," it's your only choice. There are no non governmental organizations to help with this. The CCP is terrified of their own citizens because there is and always has been deep distrust and that's what created the chaos. Yes, we've got some problems in our system, but do not comment on issues in such a blunt way without doing the research. The CCP has egg all over their face; the yolk is dripping on the floor and they're slipping on it trying to pick themselves up.
95
@Moree Spinaro wrote: "US can’t even run an election without hiccups with its game show host at the helm."
I had no idea the Iowa Caucus was televised in mainland China. Don't they have enough to worry about?
2
The entire global economy will be at perilous risk if the people who make the vaccines get infected. We must make sure that 2019-nCoV doesn’t spread to the USA and other countries producing the vaccine.
We must develop a vaccine before the virus mutates. Everyone in the world should work to eliminate this imminent threat. This virus is only getting started and it must be stopped before it kills any more people.
28
Thanks for using the 2019-nCoV designation. If the news would use the full designation SERS-CoV and MERS-CoV if/when these are discussed or compared to 2019-nCoV. It may be informative.
Thank you, NYT, for being at the forefront on this potential pandemic. Your journalism is bar none and provides us with the information we need as our so-called leaders have been pretty much silent on the issue so far.
Please keep it up.
99
Perhaps our leaders are actually in action rather than writing moralistic articles from afar. How is this article doing anything ?
A new publication in JAMA reports a death rate of 4.8%. Friends in China say it is almost 10%. Currently they are reporting nearly 8000 patients who have severe illness. There is high chance many will not survive.
It looks to me that the Chinese Government decided to sacrifice the City of Wuhan to save the rest of the country. Xi invoked a Mao phrase. Mao did not have any hesitation in sacrificing millions in his view for a greater good.
The only lesson we will learn from China is how not to manage a serious outbreak.
54
@SridharC The death rate in the JAMA report, refers to people who were hospitalized - it does not include much milder cases that never required hospitalization. Incidentally the mortality rate was 4.3% not 4.9%. I think it's understandable given their track record, to mistrust the official numbers coming out of China, to try to decipher what is going on through multiple sources including social media reports. But the reality is we don't really know what is going on and we need to wait in uncertainty - something that most humans, myself included find almost impossible to do. I think watching the progression of disease in the cases outside of China will give us a better idea of the death rate.
32
@AC I stand corrected. The mortality rate was 4.3%. Currently they report only hospital mortalities and do not consider out of hospital mortalities. There is substantial reporting even by this newspaper of people found dead in street corner. I think the best way to estimate mortality is by comparing yearly statistics if they keep them accurately. I do hope you noticed the substantial infection rates of hospital staff.
6
Mao's stepping back from the Cultural Revolution was not a move of strong leadership but of a witnessing the colossal failure of his messianic persona. Deng at Tiananmen Square showed a vicious side of him which ruined his international reputation. Xi doesn't like to deal with situations that cannot be managed by simply intimidating the opposition to his leadership. The coronavirus cannot be defeated with political repression.
91
@c harris
Revolution A: the most fervent rush to the front lines and the barricades with whatever they can hurl at The Man.
Revolution B: those whose families are dead, as good as dead, or doomed to die in isolation, having given up on seeing loved ones again, or even living another year, rush more carefully and methodically to find their own one-man or one-woman way to make a serious impact on The Man.
Brrr!
1
@Harris: Mao was terrible, but the story of massacre in Tiananmen Square is fake news. There is no evidence that anyone was killed in the square that day. US Embassy cables revealed by Wikileaks confirm that. Google Wikileaks Tiananmen Cable.
China is doing well from what I can see. 20 million people in lock-down but only 900 deaths). They do need help in their brave struggle though.
1
@c harris we can leave that one to South Park -- how to intimidate a virus...
This got to be a venerable Communist tradition: think of Stalin who disappeared from public view right after the Germans attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 (a disaster for which he was criminally unprepared because he'd refused to heed multiple intelligence reports warning him of the impending attack). He blamed (and executed) many of his his generals for the initial defeats of the Red Army. Of course, when the tide eventually turned and the Russians won the war, Uncle Joe took all the credit for the victory. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, indeed.
32
Not in any way to diminish the suffering from and impact of the Wuhan coronavirus, but let's keep a little perspective. The C.D.C. estimates that up to 42.9 million people got sick during the 2018-2019 flu season, 647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died. In the current season, half over, it is estimated there have been at least 22 million flu illnesses, 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths from flu.
While we appropriately pay serious attention to the evolution of Wuhan coronavirus, let us not let it cloud out the ongoing risks from flu and the need to act accordingly. If quarantining cities in China, cruise ships, and others is sensible and legitimate, maybe we should consider the same for anti-vaxxers here in America.
As with the 40,000 annual deaths in vehicle crashes, the flu is not a "sexy" news story, so does not get nearly the coverage deserved. On the other hand, the Wuhan coronavirus, makes for excellent clickbait. That is not to deny the legitimate stories, many hooked to the unknown elements. Novelty and the unknown get attention, until what was once novel becomes the new normal. That's human nature. Think of suicide bombers. In the mid 2000s when they started happening as more than a rare "curiosity", each had huge news coverage, complete with psychological "analyses", biographies, detailed descriptions, etc. Now when there is a suicide bombing, it is simply covered as any other bombing, "suicide" simply being consigned to being an adjective.
34
@Steve Fankuchen Those numbers provide a useful perspective - and have been widely circulated for that reason. At the same time, the coronavirus "season" is not half over, rather it hasn't even begun in the United States. The real comparison is between the roughly one in a thousand mortality rate for flu vs the ten or twenty (or more) in a thousand mortality for the coronavirus. In this context, our concern about the epidemic is justifiably related to our ability to control it. That is what we don't know.
20
@Jim Wallis
Jim, thanks for engaging. I think I was, or at least I was trying to comment on the media's proclivity for clickbait over substance rather than commenting on the Wuhan coronavirus. Where it will really be scary destructive, I expect, is if it works its way into Africa, whose health infrastructures, and possibly culture in parts, are not set up to cope with a new virus that is highly contagious person-to-person.
You are right to add some data perspective. I would add that though our disease-gathering statistics are undoubtedly much better than China's (as well as we are more open about them), even our stats are aggregated from many sources which record illnesses and even deaths in many different ways.
8
@Steve Fankuchen The death rate for the flu is 0.13%. The reported death rate for novel coronavirus is so far 15x higher. Novel coronavirus also has the same basic reproductive number as flu, but as there are no vaccines for it like there are for the common flu strains, it will spread about twice as fast. So, had novel coronavirus been the prevalent strain in the US in 2018-2019, we'd likely be looking at about 86 million ill and 1.7 million dead instead of 43 million and 61,000 respectively. The efforts being taken to avoid such a scenario are warranted.
15
If the coronavirus outbreak had started in Canada, the PM would have already apologized to the whole world. Xi has no decency to at least say something to the world community -- acknowledge the outbreak like a gentleman, be humble and ask for help and cooperation from everyone.
48
because that’s worked so well for China previously. .
The real question is why Xi did not ban all of the grotesque open air, wild animal markets after the SARS outbreak? This oversight endangered not only China, but the entire world community.
70
@Conservative Democrat
Well for starters, Xi wasn't president in 2003; that was Hu Jintao.
Also, the SARS outbreak didn't originate from wet markets. It spread through multiple species of animals ( before mutating into a version that was transmittable to humans, and the conclusion then wasn't it was the wet markets. I believe mosquitos was where it originates from, but I'm can't guarantee it.
10
@C The primary source of the SARS virus were bats, with civets in wet markets as an intermediary species infecting humans. No mosquitoes involved.
27
@C
I don’t understand your deflection that Xi was not president during the SARS outbreak. He has been in power for several years thereafter and has had plenty of time to ban these unsanitary markets which always seem to be at the epicenter of another outbreak.
25
if the outbreak had occurred in Canada or New Zealand or Finland, or you fill in the blank, this would be a huge opportunity for doctors, scientists and leaders -people- to evolve & work together. It is heartbreaking the coronavirus has the upper hand due to politics and the need for face. If Xi wants to look good and compassionate to the rest of the world, now would be the time to appear, and say something, anything.
79
I think it’s tone deaf to call this an opportunity.
don’t overestimate how well North America would respond in such a circumstance. At the very least, it’d be nearly impossible to quarantine 11 million people
2
Progressive democracy versus communist dictatorship. Pretty simple comparison.
1
@Margot: he has already appeared many times on China TV - I saw one and have heard about others. Why do you think he should say something to you? So few have actually been affected in the rest of the world.
Did the US president apologise to the world about the 2009 flu from the US and Mexico that killed 284,000 according to the CDC and where Americans spread the virus to other countries?
The NYT has done excellent work on the difficulties in China, from the coronavirus, over the last few weeks. Appropriately, most has been (and should continue to be) about its containment, until a vaccine is discovered. But new problems are approaching. The Chinese Lunar New Year holiday ends Monday. People are expected to be back to work next week. How many will report to their designated factory is an open question. The global economy is now, at the least, two to three weeks into a supply chain disruption. It will take only a couple more for the disruption to begin impacting the Global consumer. The present economic positive news, presently found in most parts of the world, could change very rapidly. NYT is on the forefront of reporting these developments.
22
I sincerely hope this does not reach the USA in great proportions. I don’t think our fractured country could effectively respond. And many don’t even believe in science!
59
@Allison wrote: "I don’t think our fractured country could effectively respond. And many don’t even believe in science!"
I cannot speak for the people of your country, but we in the US don't eat powdered Pangolin scales and delude ourselves that it does anything to promote good health. We believe in science and common sense.
12
@NorthernVirginia
Well most people, Trump has no clue what science is. He also brought people back here who are likely contagious and let them quarantine themselves, which they have not been doing. How smart is that. But I agree about the rest of what you said.
1
@NorthernVirginia 45% of Virginians voted for Trump in 2016. There goes science and common sense.
2
Honorable that Uncle Xi is "stepping back into the shadows while remaining firmly in charge".
Glorious if Uncle Xi will beat the 50/50 odds to remain firmly in charge.
8
When going gets tough, the tough hide in self quarantine so they dont get the virus.
Wait until Don the Con does same...being a germaphobe this will be very scary for him...once he accepts the science.
90
@scientella
I’ve heard Koch Bros and Co are buying up mountainous regions in Colorado due to global warming. think they’ll share w/ the rest of us if the waters get too high?
5
@scientella Xi- a profile in courage.
@scientella
Can’t wait to see the might Trumpie and his family fall . Once you don’t have your health it doesn’t matter how big and bad you are
We don’t have real leader in the White House and the lack of understanding science will kill us all, not today not this virus but like climate change it will keep coming and coming and we can’t stop it
2
I don't think you can expect much from someone who's would censor someone just for calling him fat.
Of course he'd throw everyone under the bus before himself.
37
@jj
Are we talking about Trump.. or Xi?
I can't tell from your comment.
In a just world, Dr. Li Wenliang would be a jetsetting speaker who makes bank like Obama with his inspiration and insight, and xi would be another notch on nCoV-2019's bedpost.
12
It’s interesting to see what egotistical dictator-types do in a crisis. Obscure. Deny. Hide from accountability. Clearly the political dynamics are different, but this is what I fear from our own president. “Character matters,” as they say, and our leader’s character points to this kind of behavior if his authority or reputation is questioned. Let’s all hope that the United States does not face a pandemic or other real, domestic threat while Trump is in office. Things could go from just unsettling to plain dangerous real fast.
49
The real situation on the ground from the central government is far from obscure and deny. If anything, it was the local government that initially denied it. Is there news censorship today about the outbreak? Yes absolutely. But the responsibility of the initial obscuring lies with the local government.
Several party mouthpiece media have published news and op-eds condemning the silencing of the whistleblowers. Dr Li Wenliangs death will be investigated by a special team sent by the central government. But you don’t see that being reported by NYT.
@Porky
Sorry to break it to you, but both the "local government" and the "central government" are controlled by the corrupt leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Self-interest is their only concern.
Bad news for all you anti-China zealots.
They're come up with an anti-coronavirus vaccine based on one developed by Gilead pharmaceuticals, an American company, which is working with Chinese scientists/medical personnel to mass manufacture the vaccine.
Epidemic? Never mind.
4
@Mimi, Based on my professional life in vaccinology and vaccine development , I very much doubt that an effective vaccine has yet been developed. My guess is that it will take at least a year for development and distribution. If you have better news, please share it.
39
@Mimi
Gilead are not a vaccine maker. They had an anti-viral drug which MIGHT be somewhat effective against this virus. That drug was developed against Ebola - against which it didn't prove to be much use. A few days ago Gilead announced possible trials against the Wuhan coronavirus.
18
@nolongeradoc And our software for drug discovery ranked it (remdisivir) as one of the candidates against 2019-nCoV. It was ranked at #6 from our library of 8000 compounds. So I think it has a good shot of working.
Also in the past we published the first paper predicting HIV protease inhibitors will work against the SARS coronavirus proteinase (SARS is 86% identical to 2019-nCoV in terms of the polyprotein sequence). This was later confirmed (including again this year). Apparently someone in Thailand used a mix of HIV PR inhibitors with tamivir and found it works.
6
While scientists discuss what scientific name to give to the Wuhan coronavirus, there's no reason why ordinary people can't give it a meaningful, easy-to-remember name. I suggest that it be named in honor of Chairman Xi: the Xi Virus.
100
@Kenneth J. Dillon Nope; there's too much rhythm to the "Wuhan Flu".
1
Sounds about right.
1
@Kenneth J. Dillon
Wow, that is brilliant!
1
The Dictator backs away from responsibility when he causes an epidemic because he was trying to control everything by lying. Viruses aren’t afraid of dictators like Xi or Trump.
42
The numbers have to be way undercounted because what is the chance that in a city of 10 million people both the doctor and an American happen to be among the 700 who have died?
52
It’s currently under reported because there’s a shortage of hospital beds, medical staff, and more importantly test kits. However, Hubei, the province in which Wuhan is located, has promised to test all the people with symptoms within the next two days.
3
@PorkyThe recent data on the citizen from Japan who died from the virus controverts the dismissal of causes beyond limitation of medical resources: the deceased was reported to die from a different cause than that of the virus and was not counted as such. Time's recent article on the virus reveals a similar case. Those who are dying as a result of the virus are being marked as dying from different causes than the virus. This also contributes to under-reporting of the data.
It is not just a result of shortage of tests, staff, and beds. There is a very high probability China is concealing the actual deaths for political reasons.
China's government under-reported the deaths that resulted from the Great Leap Forward (by tens of millions of people), the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Massacre, SARs, the Sichuan Earthquake, the Wenzhou train wreck (bodies were buried with the train to conceal deaths), and so on. Journalists have been shut down and help from CDC and WHO has been ignored by China. Why?
Why was Li Wenliang silenced, if not to conceal the truth?
Another reason to add to the shortage of medical resources is the culture of censorship and deception that pervades the governing bodies of China's people. It is not just a result of shortage of medical supplies.
1
@Allright The chances of an American and a doctor dying are pretty reasonable actually--when considering population density and expat populations, I'm surprised that there haven't been more doctors and expats dying...yet.
1
Freedom of speech is supposedly enshrined in the Chinese constitution. See what happens to a country when leaders get to pick and choose which parts of a constitution they uphold.
124
Despite the outcry about spreading rumor and misinformation, it has become obvious that the actual objective is to discourage the dissemination of facts and the truth. Ultimately any hope of actually facing the realities inherent in a pandemic starts with providing timely, accurate information to every individual and all nations. The most destabilizing approach is to hide the facts and then to be exposed as corrupt and/or incompetent. The facts indicate the Wuhan Coronavirus is a novel pathogen for which there is no pre-established "herd" immunity. There are no human beings with antigens to resist infection. The opportunity to limit this epidemic was lost by the self-serving decisions made by the Chinese Communist Party in December, when the first few cases could have been isolated. The extraordinary quarantines now imposed throughout China & the dramatic near cessation of economic activity makes the Wuhan Coronavirus an event unprecedented in modern times. As the virus inevitably spreads through the slums of India, Africa and the refugee camps of the Middle east, there will be no hope of prevemting global transmission. It is now probable that a majority of earth's population will be infected over the next 2-3 years. Total fatalities will depend on the evolution of the virus, effective efforts to slow transmission by limiting travel & the rapid development of a vaccine. That's not racism, it's simple biology. The best achievable outcome depends on recognizing these realities.
33
@mike4vfr
And Trump is letting people self quarantine who are likely carriers. He has no plan at all. People on ships said they got a 45 second screening and were permitted to leave.
4
Let’s hope he or someone who can speak for him comes clean to the size of this current problem. So is the Chinese government offering support to the victims of this disease and their families. China has a $4 trillion dollar surplus , and with possibly 100,000 infected and a few thousand who have died there are many families in need. Bill Gates through his foundation put up $100 million to help find a cure for this disease. Where are all of the new Chinese billionaires , and why doesn’t the government of China move faster to give love and support to their people.
15
The Chinese people, including Chinese billionaires, celebrities, and the average joes HAVE been donating.
According to news reporting, as at Jan 31, just the amount donated to Wuhan the city, amounts to RMB 2.59 Billion, or USD 375 million. This is just in cash donations for one city. There are donations of supplies, donations in the form of waiving rents, free deliveries. Jack Ma of alibaba has donated USD 150 million... there’s an Internet influencer that donated USD 150 million. Tencent donated USD 220 million. The list goes on. And it’s now Feb 9, the amounted would’ve undoubtedly grown.
Just because the US media hasn’t reported it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Please do you research before thinking that the Chinese has to rely on the US for donation.
10
The government has quarantined 11 million people since Jan 23, most provinces have pushed back work resumption by 12 days. Thousands of medical staff, billions worth of funding and supplies have flown to Hubei to help fight the spread.
Despite the initial denying of the local authorities, once the extent of the outbreak is known to them, the central and other local governments have been acting very, very fast.
I doubt any other governments could achieve this type of iron fist controls.
4
God has His own ways of teaching the most powerful, blatantly arrogant and those who consider themselves above God a healthy dose of humility.
Even the most powerful can be brought to their knees in a split-second
But, now is the time for the world to rally and help the Chinese in their hour of need. “Vasudev kutumbakam” meaning the entire world is my family aptly days we are all together in this fight and must limit suffering . My sincere prayers for the well-being of all in China and elsewhere with this deadly virus. I appreciate the great work done by the ordinary citizens and health-care workers in this extraordinary times. I deeply appreciate the philanthropy and great work done be Melinda and Bill Gates foundation to put their money without hesitation and for the common good of the human race. May the epidemic go away quickly with prayers by the way of medicine, vaccine or some magic potion.
20
John Milton got it right. Only when all ideas are considered will the best idea emerge. Xi is paying a price for ignoring that tenet and Donald Trump will surely pay one as well.
33
@Edward "Thinking outside the box" is not encouraged in China. It never has been.
👍
3
Mr. Xi is fortunate that the Chinese proletariat are not interested in freedom. As long as their lives improve modestly - not by Western standards, he has nothing to worry about. However, the odds of a prolonged quarantine until late spring are high. This will hit people's wallets hard especially privately owned factories. The shutdown of factories will intensify the push for manufacturing outside of China. Xi will be left with few a options - devalue currency and a large-scale bail out.
29
@Nick R
Privately owned factories? Like Apple's Chinese factories where all their products are made?
Maybe this is making Tim Cook nervous.
1
I've spent a fair amount of time in China over the last 20 years. There is no shortage of smart and creative people there, just as capable as people anywhere else. The problem is a political one. The people have made a grand bargain with the government: keep us fed and relatively happy, and we will put up with authoritarianism and limited rights. But at some point, folks there will wake up and realize the government is not keeping their part of the bargain. The waking up will happen when enough people realize this.
The lack of a free press is probably the most limiting factor. Once they get more free speech and press, it will just be a matter of time before people start taking control of their own lives. This health crisis may not be the tipping point, but it will be a step along the way.
191
@burfordianprophet
Agreed. But creative thinking is rarely encouraged in China. I, also, have many years experience in China.
17
@Andrew
And this answers Porky's question. And the creative ones often emigrate, land in jail or worse.
7
@burfordianprophet
Throughout history China has had a large number of poor people ruled by a few that were fabulously wealthy.
Communism did manage to raise the standard of living for its poorest and convert a rural society into an industrial one. Yes, 'The Great Leap Forward' was an abject failure and millions died through the ineptitude of the Party but the Communists changed course without relinquishing control.
Compared to other far smaller nations in the same situation China has accomplished relative miracles. They were literally given much of the US industrial base in exchange for cheap labor and have bought friends and influenced people all around the world with the money they made making 'stuff' for the US. Meanwhile the US has squandered trillions and made enemies all over the world with its endless use of military force.
5
I am curious why media outlets report the numbers of infections and deaths as fact. At best, they require the qualifier “confirmed via testing, which is limited.” And reading between the lines, require scrutiny as to the source, with a qualifier like “cases reported by the Chinese government, but not yet confirmed by international experts.”
I say this because a Chinese MD I know who is working in the US as a post-doc, and who personally knows many of the doctors called into Wuhan to treat patients, has said that these doctors have told him the official infection numbers are extremely underreported. They were estimating more in the ballpark of 100-200K by last week. This would line up better with epidemiological estimates published based on early infection rates, and would better explain Xi’s heavy-handed lockdowns etc. It does not seem plausible that he would tank the economy over the official numbers reported.
287
@J This is what I hear as well from a friend in China. Very scary.
53
@J I agree that the numbers are likely highly underrated, but with that many cases in question, is it thought that those are all confirmed through testing, or would that include the full spectrum of mild to severe, including those that are mild and not even requiring medical treatment or testing?
12
It’s currently under reported because there’s a shortage of hospital beds, medical staff, and more importantly test kits. However, Hubei, the province in which Wuhan is located, has promised to test all the people with symptoms within the next two days.
8
Two variables - Chinese reluctance to not pass upwards bad news, and very large population centres - is not going to change anytime soon. But one typical feature of zoonotic virus ignition that could be permanently fixed is to permanently end the trade in exotic animals. If this, as well as major improvements in mass farming of domesticated animals is addressed, then a piece of the pandemic puzzle could be fixed.
Forgetting every other metric; how many trillions of dollars globally could NCoV-2019 end up costing? Which leads to the obvious question of whether allowing the resumption of trade in exotic animals worth that risk?
Is the global community prepared to tell China (and other countries where it's rampant) that it's not ok?
125
@Rod Palmer No more bat soup?
15
@Rod Palmer
Source of the vector jump that moved the virus into human catagion is NOT YET KNOWN.
Stop fear mongering.
There will plenty of time for arm chair post outbreak analysis. How about we stick to seeing the outbreak contained, treated, and eliminated? You know.. real healthcare discussion in a real crisis.... rather then speculation that servers no purpose other than anti-China phobia.
@Rod Palmer
We should absolutely be prepared to tell them trading exotic animals is not okay. Frankly, cultural sensitivity has prevented a thorough discussion from even occurring. Why should we accept a clearly disturbing and unsanitary practice of live exotic animal trade? Because it’s their culture? Who cares?!
Xi needs to go to Wuhan and see the disaster his dictatorship has wrought. He should visit the grieving relatives of Dr. Wenliang and beg the country for forgiveness for his death. Then he should vow to allow the free speech his constitution promises. Otherwise, one can only hope that his cowering reveals to the country what kind of wimp they have at the helm.
101
Absolutely NOT will he. Why would he associate with a tragedy. He cant be tossing paper towels.
15
@Jeff
Has the leadership in US apologized for the 2003 Iraq war where the number deaths from both sides was enormous and a whole nation has been torn apart ? I think NYT and other newspapers forgot their roles in 2002 leading up to the war. So short a memory. Democracy or Authoritarian regime, when push comes to shove, outcomes are generally the same.
1
...in a perfect world....
Now had that happened in the United States....
Digital control of their population will one day erupt. You can not control every thought, and movement of 1.4 billion people without someday having blow back. Suppression and creativity do not work well in any economy. Especially one that is trying to keep 1.4 billion people “happy”.
50
@Sailorgirl
You're right and it is the one thing the CCP fears more than anything else. Hence, the death penalty for the most petty of things. In China the value of human life does not outweigh the value that the Communist Party places on maintaining control and power.
If freedom of speech ever comes to China, it will be hard fought and will come at an enormous cost. It is unfortunate that at this time, the people of China cannot necessarily rely on our government for support (in terms of freedom/human rights). If only Obama were still President. I don't think he would state: "Great discipline is taking place in China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation."
16
@Sailorgirl
Sorry- It is possible that folks do consider themselves "well-off"-when they have a full stomach, a decent place to live, security and stability in their routines and the ability to believe that their children will be become university educated ,affluent professionals. A people who can look back on the hardships of their grandparents,and take pride in their generations advances.
The hunger for " freedom of speech"usually comes AFTER these needs are met. You will always find some vocal (righteously so ) aspirants for a more open and honest society in a nation of 1.4 billion people. Yet for the vast majority of people the promise of stability and future prosperity is sufficient for the time being. China is a 3500 year civilization and culture. If you are familiar with China's long history you might appreciate that the hunger and need for "stability"may bury ,for the time being, the immediate urgent desire for the right of an unfettered political voice,free speech,free movement, and American-styled and self-defined "freedoms".
Some NYT commenters over the past 2 weeks seem to focus on the failings of China's leadership (as if do not we have problems of our own in that matter). Some comments actually seem to hope for a catastrophe leading to "regime change".
Schadenfreude is titillating, until the weakness and inequality in our own system, is confronted by the same health catastrophe.
And it will, in 8 weeks time.
12
@Mr. Louche wrote: "Yet for the vast majority of people the promise of stability and future prosperity is sufficient for the time being."
I suggest visiting the US -- after the quarantine, of course. No guarantee of stability or of future prosperity, just the freedom to try to succeed.
3
A former professor of mine once told me: “He who takes credit for the rising sun eventually cannot avoid blame when it sets.”
262
@Eric J. Heikkila
Someone should tell Trump who takes credit for everything positive and blames everyone else for his failures.
9
@Eric J. Heikkila We are no better. If this was the US, Trump would blame the virus on Obama policies, and half the country would buy that argument.
8
@Eric J. Heikkila
Which is why the country that has spent the last century loudly proclaiming the superiority of its government and overthrowing others is now completely humiliated by the monkey its system installed into office, named Trump.
How does that crow taste?
6
Was there anyone, back in December, who foresaw that a new epidemic would emerge and constitute a danger to Xi Jinping's way of governing? The world is endlessly inventive. There is a push-pull relationship emerging here, as it always does in the case of authoritarian regimes. The more difficult the actual situation, the more the authorities have to suppress actual information. In the end, unless someone comes up with a quick and accurate means of diagnosis and a corresponding means of treatment, Xi Jinping will have to wait and hope - like his countrymen, although he certainly is much better armed.
57