Conspiracy theories against the U.S. have much more weight globally when the American president has publically lied or misled more than 16,000 times while in office. He has created a warm petri dish for disinformation like this to grow and flourish.
45
Yes and no but they will not allow me to discuss it here.
13
Conspiracy theories are a cheap trick and politicians are eager to use them for short term gains, making them look foolish especially if science can prove them wrong,
According to an article that appeared in Scientific American on March 11, the Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli has identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves, warning that there are more out there.
On December 30, 2019, Shi was called by her boss to the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention because he had detected a novel coronavirus in two hospital patients with atypical pneumonia, and he wanted her renowned laboratory to investigate.
If the finding was confirmed, the new pathogen could pose a serious public health threat—because it belonged to the same family of bat-borne viruses like the one that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease that infected 8,100 people and killed nearly 800 between 2002 and 2003.
Shi’s team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences institute raced to uncover the identity and origin of the new contagion. The mysterious disease spread like wildfire, before it was officially named Covid-19.
13
It's nothing but another conspiracy from social media just like they said it was a bio-weapon
China is now using the Trump strategy, or is it the other way around? Now to agree on where it all began: Obama? Europe as a 'foreign virus'? Hilary Clinton? The "Deep State?" Sean Hannity will know; if he doesn't, certainly Rush Limbaugh will...
7
China is absolutely not to be trusted. They kill or imprison those that speak out against the regime. They steal technology, they build islands and then claim their territory extends from there and their military leadership recently said the US Navy should have a aircraft carrier group attacked with a nuclear weapon so the USA gets out of their way in Western Pacific. Look it up. However they are the low cost producer with good quality so the world has sourced a large amount of their production there. China owns this virus problem and nobody else. My hope is that China freaks out and starts to nationalize production plants belonging to the USA, cuts off our antibiotic supply, holds back rare earth materials and more. If you can comprehend / understand that last sentence you know where I'm coming from.
17
Who does one believe when both countries are known to propagate lies to further each other's self-interests?
I guess that's why it's getting more important than ever to exercise critical thinking and read news articles and opinion columns with a healthy dose of skepticism.
18
Which side started the politicising of the virus? Wuhan-virus and China-virus used by senior US officials.
25
China modified an influenza virus, made a vaccine, vaccinated most their important people, prepared for a virus outbreak beforehand, then released it in Wuhan. What's a few thousand people that die in china if they can destabilize the rest of the world and ruin their economies and come out on top. This is just a theory.
21
Let's just wait & see. Producing vaccine usually takes twelve months, it probably could be done in nine, testing takes another year. Initial stream which appeared in China is very aggressive, it's permutation which Chinese confirmed is far less aggressive. All do this is indicative its far from proof. As huge scale quarantine messures won't work anywhere else my actual advice is going to smaller community's from large cities for those who can & are healthy of course & avoiding any unnecessary risks avoiding unnecessary contacts.
COVID-19 started at precise suitable time to solve all China's ruling party problems:
1. Chinese Communist Party seized back control oh Hong Kong, made HK protester go home. Before the virus situation was a complete disaster.
2. Chinese population thought CCP was weak due to the protests and complete failure to fight the US sanctions—that's the biggest fear for the party. Now the problem is solved and it can apply authoritarian dictatorship without any limits.
3. The US and west are punished for sanctions and constant disapproval of the CCP.
4. It sent a strong signal to the world leaders that in case they continue to push China, it can attack the whole world and doesn't care about costs or how many people die.
5. CCP demonstrated that the world economy seriously depends on Chinese production and supply chain.
6. It will even give the window of opportunity for Chinese to buy more international brands—really the only option to enter the world market. Only 2 Chinese brands could do it: Xiaomi and Huawei.
When thinking about it and aligning all the facts, it very well draws a picture of a strategically crafted plan to implement when things go off the rails and CCP lose trust and control.
The party never cared about own people. So even millions of Chinese deaths are acceptable for CCP if it keeps control in the country.
Lets not forget that the party blocked any information, quarantine in the very beginning—it needed the virus to spread. The plan was to let it loose.
20
I am thankful for the brutal repression by China of their Press and strangely, for the partisan attacks of the US Press on the President because of an election campaign.
China has brilliant, hard-working techies and scientists, but their Achilles Heel is the government's repression of anything they do not like, and worse, of anything that would help the US. But that lack of cooperation gives our techies an edge in the competition.
Do you really think our President would have orchestrated such a wide ranging commercial / government war on the virus so quickly without the constant attacks by reporters, looking for any reason to further their political party's chances in November? Yes, it would have happened, and of course the President should cool it demanding every team member praise him, and should have admitted the lack of testing up front, but the Press did a favor for America -- and for the President's re-election.
I would rather have a Press that despises the President, emphasizes every false move, ignoring every positive one, and get nervous when an Administration that our Press loves is governing, because they will not have our amazingly valuable watchdog crew of reporters.
3
If we really want to talk about conspiracy theories, how about we start with this;
Xi and the Chinese authorities knew about this virus from the beginning. The question is "when was the beginning?"
Assume that it was way before they told the World about it, as they did in December. Perhaps in October.
Xi realized some of the citizenry would die from this virus. But, he also realized this would cripple or destroy the economies of the West.
China is now rebounding and the Western democracies are reeling.
And the Western media is really listening and even giving credence to "China Spins Tale That the U.S. Army Started the Coronavirus Epidemic
After criticizing American officials for politicizing the pandemic, Chinese officials and news outlets have floated unfounded theories that the United States was the source of the virus."
WOW!
8
Probably the Russian started this. They have the expertise, the ability and the single-minded determination to humble the US and Western Europe to the detriment of all else. Since China has further eclipsed Russia on the world stage and brought stability and prosperity to its people it too needs to be brought down a peg or two... Russia isn’t well integrated into word markets, there are no essential Russian products, minerals or oil we can’t get elsewhere and Russians are under punishing sanctions and really don’t have much to lose. Putin has shown that for 20 years he has been willing to sacrifice his people’s well-being for both power and “prestige” seeking to restore Russia to a mythical level of greatness it never really enjoyed. His kleptocracy can only thrive in the chaos of others be it in Syria or taking out his opponents by toxic poison. Voila... we are all living the chaos. In most things it is good to ask - as my grandmother always did “qui bono?” - who benefits? In this pandemic only Russia seems to benefit from the economic, social and political mayhem which has ensued. My bet is on Moscow as the source of this.
7
Before Mr Trump assumed as presidente of the most powerful country in the world, this country had a diplomacy school that consistently worked to developed a better world for most to live in. With mistakes and positives measures. Diplomacy takes time, sometime years to make results but what you can’t do is change of course every morning based on your humour or bad thinking’s. To be a president of any country implies a major responsibility. When you represente the first powerful nation of the planet, this responsibility to coexist and work with other countries for a better and consistent future for the whole world society is much more important than just your voters over a part of your country. #maketheworldabetterplaceforeverybody
3
Chinese officials are wrong on many fronts, when they accuse the US of spreading Coronavirus. Their most obvious fallacy is that, the US officials could not guarantee that the virus would not show up on its own country. So, if they ever wanted to do such a thing, they would first develop a vaccine for it.
Second, even if the US decides that it is in its strategic interest to do such a thing, it will not do it using its military personnel. Because of its enormous international ramifications, it will do it via another country. For example, it can ask MI6 to use its connections with anti-mainland Chinese in Hong Kong to get it done by those Chinese who are still resentful of how their grandparents suffered during the civil war and Mao's takeover.
5
Any thinking person that has seen video footage of the Wuhan Food Market knows exactly where this disease originated.
The world is reaping the unintended consequences of globalization. The same things that drove Western companies to outsource their manufacturing to China - lack of environmental standards, lack of regulations and massive supply of labour (i.e. people) - are the things that created coronavirus and Covid 19 in the Wuhan food market.
The Western democracies need to wise-up and bring their supply chains home. Yes, aggregate GDP and productivity may be lower, but the arithmetic average is misleading; the median citizen will be better off.
39
The "shred of evidence" according to info from China: genetic sequencing of the coronavirus from cases in each country seems to indicate that there are a total of 5 generations, but they could not find generation 1 and generation 2 from the huge volume of Chinese cases, while the small number of US cases had a complete spectrum of generations 1 through generation 5. They are guessing that the entire CDC testing kit fiasco was intentional because more testing would further prove the case the the coronavirus actually originated from the US. All of this should not be that hard to prove or disprove.
Viruses mutate and jump from animals to humans. That is what viruses do. Just like there are more Windows viruses than there are Mac viruses because there are more Windows computers. There are more humans. It could be from wild life, as it could be from birds that fly into our backyard or from our pets and other domestic animals. The risk is there.
Seriously, is this the right time to be arguing over where the earthquake that caused the tsunami was located? There is a common enemy that we, as part of humanity, need to work together to defeat.
36
I do not trust the US, full stop.
I do not trust a country where the Secretary of State openly admitted he and his colleagues in various US government security and intelligence departments have cheated, lied and stolen their way to the top (and are still cheating, lying and stealing to maintain their perch at the top).
I do not trust a country that has been applying economic, financial and political terrorism upon the world, that has been using war, conquest and terrorism to cow and bully the rest of the world, and is probably now expanding its tools of terror from cyber-weapons and financial weapons to bio-weapons.
The faster China and the rest of the world decouples from the US, and puts the US into a hard containment headlock, the better it will be for world peace.
44
@T E Low
I agree. USA floated a very substantiated theory, "Saddam Hussein has weapons of Masss destruction."
12
Seems like China is simply responding in kind to Fox news' instigations.
13
Isn’t it sad that our national image is at an all time low and debunking such conspiracies is now more difficult than ever?
In all honesty, I don’t blame the Chinese if they fell for this foolish theory. We have displayed a gross inability in terms of combating the virus.
16
@Wayne Oh, give the thinly veiled Trump hate a rest already.
6
When FOX NEWS--American state TV--is relentlessly spreading disinformation about China, it's only logical for the PRC to respond in kind.
It's naive and disingenuous to expect otherwise.
49
Could it be, when tariffs were highest food supplies were less in China and people were eating unhealthy food sources.
3
Between GOP disinformation and Chinese disinformation, we’re in a warm of words that does nothing to help stem the tide of the outbreak.
I really thought humans were better than this. This sort of rhetoric is how we blunder into world wars....
13
We have a record of detecting Coronavirus outbreaks 6 months after they occur. We made that mistake with H1N1, so it is not beyond belief that we have made it again, with Covid-19. Consider these facts:
1. President Trump fired the entire US Pandemic Response Team in May, 2018 and did not replace them.
2. CDC director Robert Redfield admitted the US had several deaths from Covid-19 before they were able to test for it.
3. The White House classified coronavirus deliberations and discusses Covid-19 in a secure area called a “Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility,” SCIF, usually reserved for intelligence and military operations. Why? Of all discussions, these need to be the most transparent.
There is a timeline of events leading up to the Chinese demand for transparency here: https://www.unz.com/article/coronavirus-the-plot-thickens/
The Chinese request is reasonable. Why do we treat it as risible.
38
This is not Chinese news, this is a social media myth, and have been officially labeled as fake news.
10
Actually, I was thinking that this was most likely the handy work of Iran.
We know that Iran has been decimated. We have all seen the satellite photos of burial sites so big they can be seen from space.
Perhaps it was an industrial accident at one of their biological warfare labs. Those type of labs use centrifuges too.
My scenario would be far more plausible.
2
@Truth is True how do you know? Do you have first-hand information or you are being fed by the cooperate media? You are being fed by google or maybe social media? which, in all honesty, can be fabricated photos. The kind of world we are living in how can you trust something that may not be the truth. Don't become part of the machine which will eventually be the cause of the end of the human race. Work against it and help the community coming out of this difficult time
1
Until now, I thought the rumors were completely unfounded that China's military had created this disease. But using completely false accusations to blame your opponent for your own misdeeds is a play right out of the bully playbook. It worked for Trump, so you can imagine the world's other big bully Xi Jinping uses it as well. At best you redirect all scrutiny away from yourself. At worst you muddy the waters of public opinion to the point that all players become at least somewhat tarnished.
15
Chinese are very sensitive and want to save face at any cost. The coronavirus is another indication. I disagree with Trump and Fox news in all matters, except this one. The Chinese are responsible for this mess and they should owe up to it. It should be called the Chinese virus. Unless they are strict with their food sourcing and distribution, viruses will be more frequent. The Chinese system is known for its ruthlessness. Let them be ruthless to all food markets that don't follow hygiene rules. Its not racist, as some liberals, whom I count myself as one, to tell the truth and hopefully, wake them up.
39
Looks like an attempt to deflect blame. China procrastinated in dealing with the epidemic and gagged a doctor who raised the alarm. What is there to be proud about?
18
Hopefully, China won't follow up their speculation with action, such as cutting off all drug sales to the US. It'd be a real shame if the US was unable to treat covid-19.
3
President for life Xi has taken a page out of the Soviet disinformation playbook:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infektion
As I have been saying on the pages for years, we need to regard China not as a friend but as a mortal enemy.
14
Bizarre indeed - but what if some members of the US Govt wanted to introduce a virus to affect the Trump administration. Something that would test his leadership, hurt the robust economy, and give the Democratic party more issues to go after.... Crazy times, but these days I really don't know what the truth is anymore...
2
At least you don’t let your lack of certainty prevent you from publicly speculating.
6
If I didn't know about germ bombs dropped on North Korea in the 50s and had I not seen the craziness after 911 regarding the postal service and secret clandestine workers mailing anthrax in the early 2000s I would put zero credence in this. Those cat's are already out of the bag so I expect the conspiracy theorists will have enough to put out several books on the subject. Oh well, it's good enough to raise the gross domestic product. That's entertainment. So it goes.
4
well, there is a lot of demonization of China here, so its good to be reminded two can play that game. Its a dangerous game that can lead to trade wars, enhanced racism, and an even more expensive arms race, or worse.
So both countries need leaders who work at getting along and educating their countrymen why that is good.
5
Keep those tariffs up. Diversifying the US and the world's manufacturing bases away from China is a good thing. It'll take time, but it's doable. If you study the manufacturing streams, the US is the consumer, China is the assembler, but Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are the suppliers of assembled parts. Keep the tariffs up to force Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to move their final assemblies out of China and into other friendlier countries.
14
@George Problem is that China has become a bigger consumer than the US in one category after another, and the speed of such is increasing. Their middle class is bigger than the entire US population.
3
There is no world without China.
There is no China without the USA.
There is no USA without China.
If there is a war between China and the USA there will be no people left living above ground.
If China and the USA don’t work things out they will eventually fight it out.
Is there really any alternative to peaceful coexistence? If there isn’t, wouldn’t it be better to be friendly? Can’t we aspire to a mutual beneficial relationship?
Do anyone but merchants of death have an interest in conflict? Diplomacy is hard but important.
38
Best response is to increase tariffs on China on all imports to 100% or more to raise funds spent on combating this virus including costs of economic disruption.
May take a few years to recover all costs but through such policies we will send a strong message to China that we (and hopefully several other countries) will not overlook their deliberate non-action and misinformation about the virus.
8
All American companies should bring their manufacturing back home. Let China suffer.
16
@J People just don’t “get it.” Capital goes to the most efficient producer: cheapest costs, highest profit. If it doesn’t do that it withers and dies or ceases to exist — as in: the store closes or the corporation gets sold or it stops production. American companies don’t “care” one way or the other where they produce something — only that it makes them enough profit to keep going and to get bigger. When our workers can live on what Chinese workers are paid your suggestion might have a chance. Until then this is just whistling past the grave yard.
10
@J No, I say that neither the Chinese nor anyone else deserves to suffer. The coronavirus could have easily originated in any country.
Being angry over the loss of manufacturing jobs does not justify hate. Think of those in Congress who made deals with countries, not just China, in order to make themselves rich and powerful. Be angry about them and then vote and do something.
We are all children of the Creator God and we are all family. Families argue and fight but then they pull together in an emergency.
7
The thing to remember is the CCP lies, especially about anything that makes the party look bad. They have to because the party has no legitimacy.
14
@Locke_ Can you provide us with an example–a direct quote with link–of a CCP lie?
I've been studying them for decades and cannot recall one.
4
Let's let less anger rule in this tragedy.
I spent a lot, and I mean a lot of time on business in China and the Chinese were extremely hospitable hosts, back when they were far less successful than today. They were far kinder than the words in the China Daily newspaper placed under my hotel door and available (for free!) in the lobby, some of which was overtly insulting. If I was a fool and believed every piece of nonsense in the China Daily, where there was sometimes a point there lost in all that anger, I'd have missed out.
We have to be big enough to understand that anger and be kind in our response and actions, don't forget it, but don't lose to it either.
Let me tell you, many of the Chinese I met were very kind, kind enough to learn my language and teach me a bit of theirs, kind enough to share the little they had with a rich foreign American who never knew hunger. The most difficult understanding between language is humor, and I remember the instances where we got to share that, humor and jokes.
I look back on that time, before the bright lights big city China came into being, and think the best of our efforts happened when we worked together, and yeah, even argued with each other.
Let's look forward to that, to working together in fixing this massive tragedy we all have now and set aside the unproductive anger, or at the very least, harness it to do some positive good.
45
It's quite likely that Mr. Zhao doesn't really believe that American soldiers brought the virus to China. This is simply a reasonable tit-for-tat response to US charges that the virus escaped from a government lab in Wuhan.
However, the article says, "Last year, Beijing explicitly accused the American government of supporting public protests in Hong Kong in an effort to weaken the party’s rule."
This accusation is certainly true. It is the mission of the CIA to support protests against governments that the US would like to see overturned. The CIA would not be doing its job if it hadn't provided clandestine support to the Hong Kong protesters. It is likely that the CIA is also doing all it can to support Uyghur separatism in Xinjiang province. The role of the CIA in the 1959 Tibet uprising that resulted in the flight of the Dali Lama is well documented https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_and_uprisings_in_Tibet_since_1950
So, American soldiers having started the epidemic in China, highly unlikely; the US having aided the recent Hong Kong demonstrations, near certain.
47
@ShenBowen The US publicly supported the Hong Kong protests for reasons both pure (aspirations of a people to self-determination and responsible government) and, I’m sure, cynical (black eye to a rival). However, to insinuate that the protests were due to CIA influence is deeply dismissive of the Hong Kong people and their rightful aspirations to fair representation, freedom of speech, and a police force that protects the public rather than serving as an arm of government repression.
16
@Pac Just curious Pac, can you show me where ShenBowen insinuated that the Hong Kong protests were due to CIA influence? Respectfully, I think you read more into the comment than is there concerning such.
3
@rmrwddicks
No - PAC is spot on.
ShenBowen raised the specter of CIA actions in Tibet during the 1959 uprising and then (miraculously) linked it to the recent protests in Hong Kong.
4
This ideas has been propagated in anonymous social media like reddit for some time by CCP operatives and the '50 cent army'.
4
Minutes from the Ministry of Propaganda meeting:
"It's US's fault"
"All of them?"
"What about my relative's factory customers? "
"My daughter's still studying there"
"I have homes in the bay area"
"My family has condos in New York"
"What if they seize our assets?"
"Fine, then it's just the US Army's fault"
"Good enough for me"
7
About a month ago Senator Tom Cotton asserted, with no factual basis, that the coronavirus may have escaped from a Chinese government germ warfare center. While China is now tossing out its own bogus theory, keep in mind that we did so first.
28
Thank you Alex Jones for getting the “It’s a bio-weapon” ball rolling right from jump street! I’ve been dreading the idea that the Chinese might pick up on it, and it looks like maybe they have! Let’s all pray they don’t decide to take some retaliatory action!
5
@Bryan And that the Secretary of State refers to the "Wuhan virus"
3
This such a lame conspiracy theory. Overall, I am quite disappointed with most of the corona virus conspiracy theories being circulated by the worlds experts in conspiracy theories. I just don't think the quality of conspiracy theories are what they used to be. I blame a complacency on a part of conspiracy theory creators who have gotten fat and happy because of the complete gullibility of the brainwashed general populaces of the world. Our conspiracy theory creators need to step up their game a bit.
7
We've already heard that the virus may have mutated at the "wet market" in Wuhan, where all sorts of animals and birds are kept in close quarters and custom-slaughtered right before patrons' eyes.
https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-chinese-wet-market-photos-2020-1
To me this is quite believable, and I'm not surprised China is trying to deflect theories from the actual origin of the virus.
8
People need to chill out. What is the difference between what Zhao said and what Tom Cotton said on Fox News when he suggested that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan? Be cognizant of the fact there are propagandas from both camps, any camps, and treat them as your daily dose of comedy.
14
@ PJC
Daily dose of comedy or tragedy? I understand what you’re saying but I think it’s more a matter of these politicians needing to smarten up more than people needing to chill out. (Not that I’m holding out to much hope for the smartening up.)
1
It's about time for Chinese to learn from Americans. "...Chinese officials who appear to have gone to the Donald J. Trump School of Diplomacy...” Not to learn from Donald Trump will be a huge mistake. Through "alternative facts", fake news, insults, smears, Donald Trump won the White House. His methods are proven successful.
Chinese officials must double up to replicate the American tactics. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, raised the possibility that the virus had originated in a high-security biochemical lab in Wuhan"... adding "“We don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving evidence on that question at all.” Pompeo call it the Wuhan virus.
Chinese officials must play at Tom Cotton & Pompeo's level. Michelle Obama preached "When Trump goes low, we go high" is a formula for failure in propaganda war.
7
"Donald J. Trump School of Diplomacy," appears to have become as virulent as the virus. The current admin has been at the forefront of politicizing this public health emergency (when it's not ignoring it and downplaying it) using its preferred weapon - prejudice, creating targets to deflect blame from its own incompetence. Blow back was only a matter of time.
Grow up! Viruses do not care about your puerile games. But they do like chaos and confusion, it makes their access easier.
6
Young people in the Asia are among the most highly educated people in the world. Many are comfortable with math and science (STEM) because they are well-taught.
Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch wrote in the New York Times (June 29, 2014) “A new H1N1 flu strain appeared unexpectedly in 1977 and spread globally for over three decades, infecting people until the 2009 pandemic strain replaced it. Genetic and other evidence leads most experts to believe it escaped from a lab in China or the Soviet Union.” Please read his op-Ed online.
China has more than 813 cities of various sizes, all of them have at least one traditional wet market. They’re neighborhood hubs, a feature of the urban/rural Sino socio-cultural landscape. So the probability is 1/813 or .00123 that Covid-19 would select Wuhan as its birthplace. You’re more likely to draw a red king and a black seven from a deck of cards, blindfolded.
What makes it more likely is perhaps the research laboratory (WIV) a few blocks from the wet market. Lab accident.
I cannot believe that Covid-19 choosing Wuhan was random, an Act of God or in Chinese mythology, plague-spreading umbrellas. This lab has been engineering chimeric coronaviruses for at least 5 years in ‘gain-of-function’ research — making deadlier and more contagious viruses. Given China’s history of lab accidents (SARS), is it possible this new virus escaped the Wuhan lab unnoticed? This is more likely than the PLA or CCP propaganda.
10
The Chinese spin is a direct response to the conspirators in the US such as Senator Cotton and Bannon who had openly vilified the virus outbreak was a result of an experiment gone haywire from China without a shred of evidence.
It is the responsibility of NYt- a self-proclaimed open-minded magazine, to point out that muckraking and conspiration go both ways which do not help the crisis at hand in any country.
9
Well, isn't that true?
1
Agree with the Chinese on this. Pompeo and McCarthy are acting like misbehaving third-graders. And yes to the call for U.S. transparency. Hoping for a true bipartisan approach to tackling the spread of coronavirus, but only Democrats trying to commit to that now. SAD!
6
@the oracle
Stating the fact that the virus did originate in China is acting like a third grader?
9
@Locke_ McCarthy and Pompeo are not stating the facts. They are following Trump's infantile practice of name-calling and trying to misdirect "blame." The choose this route instead of demanding that Trump and the departments he oversees be efficient and truthful with the American people. Well, the Chinese seem to have done a lot of things right in Wuhan that we could have learned from, such as putting together medically staffed quarantine sites. So absurd that you think those GOP zealots are "just stating facts." I guess they got tired of blindly following their dear leader by calling this deadly pandemic "a hoax" instead of putting together a first-class testing system. So many lies and inanities from on high with this.
4
US has yet to provide enough test for the whole country. With thousands of cases diagnosed as influenza since the end of 2019, you need much more concrete clinic evidence to get rid of such suspect. No test, no persuation.
7
@ZZZ
how do you think they get diagnosed with influenza?
testing, of course.
And of course they don't test everyone, especially those with mild cases during an outbreak.
But those that have to be hospitalized? Yeah, they try to actually confirm it's the flu. We do have tests for that.
So I don't buy into the conspiracy that we've been secretly calling the flu (which is pretty common) something else.
The Virus originated in China. This is a hard fact to dispute. It's not surprising, however, that China's government is doing everything in its power to flip the narrative, despite the fact that they initially tried to hide the virus outbreak.
It's concerning that there are alleged reputable news publications and journalists who continue to disseminate China's propaganda. I can't count how many people buy into the anti-American narrative. It almost seems as if the more mainstream news sources are playing into China's hand, playing the "RACIST!" card if anyone so much as suggests that the virus originated from Wuhan (Wuhan isn't a race).
This isn't the time for divisive identity politics! Americans need to come together and work to overcome this challenge. Furthermore, America needs to address the medical supply chain issue. China isn't our friend. They are our enemy and they have threatened to kill Americans by withholding critical medical supplies. This is a problem.
Whether people like to acknowledge or not, we are at war with China. It's time we come together and fight this threat.
74
I had been laboring under the misapprehension that unhygienic "wet markets," where all manner of delicious, strange beasts of unknown provenance are eaten, had been the source of the coronavirus, but this makes much more sense. How could we have missed the obvious? It's a good thing I haven't yet begun to question the wisdom of American businesses situating so much of their manufacturing capacity in the (other) Land of the Free!
13
This is what happens when our Secretary of State refers to the "Wuhan" virus.
1
Apparently China is also stealing our dear leader’s propaganda strategy.
5
such nonsense - every body knows that this is plot by the democrats to make Donald look bad and that the virus was in fact concocted by Democratic scientists in a sub basement if a California burger joint.
1
Lies as official policy.
Typical throughout history in autocratic, fascistic nations.
The nationalists who know it's false but like the nefarious purpose.
And, the fools who are not smart enough to know fact from manipulation.
Now, we've got our own liar, the nationalists who spread it, and the gullible who lap it up out of fear and willingness to bring order to their lives based on blame.
And, truth be told, I'd say the whole wicked dynamic is as dangerous and possible on the left as the right - although it's the right which is more infected in our country lately.
2
It was wrong of President Xi to spin this as peasants eating strange meat like it was 1950 and his country was starving, Wuhan has always been a rich city and one of the oldest going back to the Ding dynasty. A mistake was made, costing us lives and these lies we will never get to the bottom of.
4
Xenophobic conspiracy theories are as common there as they are here.
3
If the disease originated in the U.S., then why is the U.S. so far behind in the spread of the pandemic?
7
Everyone in the world knows that the Chinese eat live animals and parts of exotic animals. This practice has facilitated the transfer of disease from animals to humans in the past. That is the theory of how this virus made its way from animals to humans and it is completely believable. The Chinese government needs to spend its time changing this cultural practice instead of developing false storylines designed to deflect blame.
8
@William
Intuitively it is easy to think that eating live exotic animals - which I agree is disgusting and should be banned - helps virus to jump from animals to humans. But research shows that in fact it is the large scale industrial, breeding farms that encourages this, even though it is countered intuitive because these farms seem less 'dirty' than the primitive keeping and slaughtering of animals by small holdings. This is because viruses in animals need to mutate many many times, before one mutation, by chance, occurs which happens to work on humans. To achieve this, it has to be able to pass between many animals of the same kind - say hundreds thousands of chicken, for it to try out many different mutations. It cannot however jump between animals of different kinds - say chicken and pigs. The key is how a virus mutation in animals comes about which is effective to inhabit and harm humans, not so much whether on eats the animals or not.
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@STQ
factory farms can't afford to have virus infected livestock, so they end up culling them in massive (and frankly depressing) numbers.
China is not immune from this; they recently culled most of the domestic swine because of disease.
Can you point to any research you claim that points to a factory farm as the source of a novel disease in humans? Because ALL of the "famous" ones started in bushmeat/wild markets.
Maybe we should gauge our reaction to this virus on statistics from reliable sources.
Do you believe any of their Official statistics including infection/mortality rates, etc.? Compare Italy (over 1,000 deaths already) to China. Look at their populations and mortality numbers and time dealing with virus. The reported number of deaths, 3,177 in China since December looks grossly underreported.
I take all news from there with more than a grain of salt unfortunately.
The whole world lost precious time to possibly shut it down or curtail it greatly, thanks to their lack of freedom of speech, WHO not being admitted a lot earlier, etc. And now their government blames us?
We need to get this under control and stay on our toes fast.
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Articles like this does no good for the US and China to collaborate and tackle the virus. We said things that are false, you said things that are false, let's quit where we are ahead.
In a sane world, Xi and Trump, together would appear via live video conference, with English and Mandarin translation, to say:
"This is a naturally occurring virus, period. Neither nation--no nation--launched this on itself or anyone else. Moreover, both nations frankly bungled their initial responses. China rebounded fast and helped the rest of the world. The US is going to do the same. The two biggest economies on earth are going to continue working together and set the tone for global solidarity. We are one species and while we can learn from any nation's past mistakes, we needn't dwell on them for political gain, nor should we give in to cowardly finger-pointing in the face of a global emergency on the order of a world war. It's all of us against this virus: one world, many systems, many views. Till this is done we will be working together, as Chinese and American doctors scientists have with their comrades around the globe since the get-go. All other issues are tabled till we beat this. And if we beat this and do it right, a previously unthinkable age of cooperation, mutual support, and mutual respect may very well dawn. We are one species, and as an American revolutionary, Ben Franklin, once said, 'We either hang together or we'll hang separately.'" Then Trump and Xi suspend the trade war, Trump announced a reversal of the European travel ban, and explains why (or Fauci does). Finish with some humor: "You'll know we're OK when China and the US start bickering again."
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About three weeks ago I received a video from a Chinese friend that stated the Covid-19 virus started in the US. The video had the CDC building in the background.
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China is playing a dangerous game. Countries now have a very strong incentive to limit their supply chain exposure to China as much as possible. It’s no longer reliable.
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The fundamental problem here is that the Chinese allowed these exotic food markets to continue to function without regulation even after SARS. You would have thought that the Chinese government would have learned its lesson. Furthermore, it also bungled the initial outbreak, just as it bungled the initial outbreak of SARS. Communist governments have a tendency to react just as the Soviets reacted initially to Chernobyl. And police states are good at it.
Now the Chinese government, just like the Soviets and the Russians after them, are engaging in a type of propaganda that is almost comical in its absurdity. The Soviets blamed the CIA for Chernobyl and now the Chinese blame the US Army for the coronavirus. This propaganda is so clumsy one wonders if they are being truly serious or if anyone actually believes this stuff.
Trump-haters want to point to Trump here, but the real lesson is that these exotic food markets need to be shut down or regulated and the Chinese government should be held accountable for its initial foot-dragging that it has engaged in twice now.
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The Coronavirus outbreak is already testing our humanity and how it is we are going to conduct ourselves. There will be those who will behave with decency and nobility, and there will be the others. Those who lie , those who push, those who hoard without any thought for those who are unable to gather what it is they need, those whose interests will only centre around themselves. There will be heroes who will set aside their own needs to help others. There will be neighbours who look out for each other, and go and visit those who are housebound, and there will be the liars, the ones who will spread false conspiracies, and add tofear mongering. Let us do more than wash our hands, let us spread lovingkindness and care for our neighbours. Let that be the epidemic, an epidemic of decency and good behaviour.
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Chinese allegation of the involvement of US military in this is more like this. In November 2019, there was the military Olympic games in Wuhan, to which the US had sent a team of about 300. The US team happened to stay quite near to the Huanan wet market where the epidemic started. If COVIT-19 was already existing amongst US citizens - hypothetically possible as no tests were available in the US then - causing some of the deaths presumed to be due to influenza, it was possible that an infected US competitor - unknowingly and without symptoms - had entered the market and infected someone there. Thus Dr Redfield's admission that some of the supposedly flu deaths in the US were later found to be caused by COVIT-19 is a significant background to this Chinese suspicion and request for clarification from the US to identify when the first COVIT-19 case had occured in the US.
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@STQ
That's called a stretch. How would this hypothetical non-symptom having, vector have caught a zoonotic disease to begin with?
We know how these diseases originate. Chinese authorities can try to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg, but it's not hard to figure out where chickens themselves come from, and how they spread around the globe.
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The blame game seems to rule in commonality everywhere. Leaders lack any reality or sense of what leadership is in government. The political blame game displays the lack of morality to the seriousness of anything; "it's always someone else's fault." Leadership today is telling, when ignorance of reality and delusions of grandeur replaces responsibility.
This is the inverse of the Trump Administrations "it's all China's fault" behavior. Presumably the People's Liberation Army hopes that this misinformation will make their fellow citizens more ready for "gratitude education".
This Chinese allegation refers to Dr Redfield of CDC admitting to House that some flu deaths in US had indeed later found to be by Covit-19. In fact Japanese media recently already questioned whether some of the 15,000 deaths in the US, presumed to be caused by seasonal flu in the last season were in fact caused by COVIT-19 (2500 deaths worldwide). For example, A Japanese women with no known suspicious contact, was tested positive having just come back from holidaying in Haweii. Italian news also reports its ground-zero COVIT-19 patient had no known suspicious contact history except for recent holidaying in Hawaii. Furthermore new researches are showing that this virus did not originate in Wuhan - though clearly it entered the Huanan wet market there and aggressively bred between persons in it, starting an epidemic. Chinese scientists are still trying to identify the ground-zero source of the Wuhan outbreak. Interestingly recent research shows the virus's genetic variations in COVIT-19 patients can be grouped as five distinct clusters labeled as A, B, C, D and E. If A clusters are regarded as parents, B's would be children, and C's grand-children. Thus B can only manifest, or be borne, after A and not vise-versa. Genetic tests show that all COVIT-19 viruses in Chinese patients belong only to group C, those in Hong Kong show A and C, those in the US (only a handful tested) present all the classes of ABCDE. This points to USA as more likely to be the virus's place of origin.
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@STQ If true, why is your government closing your live animal markets? It has been confirmed by multiple sources that Covid-19 originated when a vendor slaughtered a bat in the live animal market in Wuhan.
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@STQ
Then how do you explain the genetic sequence of bats and pangolins when neither are consumed in the US? This work was done by Chinese scientists.
The Japanese patient is easily explained by inadequate American testing. The virus has been long spreading in the US with not testing. And could've contracted virus from Japan or on plane.
Even Chinese epidemiologists are tracing it back to November for patient zero. It's obvious that wet markets started COVID-19, just like bushmeat started Ebola, MERS from camels. Close contact with animals frequently and cross-contact that only happens in wet markets fueled this.
If US was the origin, we would've known this long ago. But it's new and no one knows, not even Wuhan doctors knew.
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@STQ
Please provide your sources for this information. Otherwise, yours is yet another claim in a long line of unsubstantiated baloney.
Other readers: Ignore claims like those contained in the above post that have no reliable source provided.
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OK, so a bunch of bat and pangolin meat connoisseurs were included in a group of U.S. Army athletes in China for the Military World Games. They circulated around Wuhan sneezing, spitting and touching as many people and objects as possible!
They were there in October and the virus broke out in December. Looks like the incubation time for the virus has reduced drastically or the Chinese medical incompetence didn't discover it until the week before the Chinese New Year.
While hurting the Chinese economy, the impact of the disease on the rest of the world has been catastrophic.
This is the fourth version of the flu that came from China: SWINE, AVIAN, and SARS preceded it. All can be traced back to a disgusting taste for certain rare animal flesh and horrific incompetence in keeping the food chain sanitary.
Since the buyers typically pay the extra costs resulting from a tariff why not institute a health tax to be collected at every port of entry and make passing the tax on to the consumer illegal - a rate in the range of 50% of the U.S. retail price seems fair. Use the money to help the economy, pay off the debt and force China to clean up its act?
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@William You may want to realise the swine flu, or H1N1 in 2009, originated in USA, and the US authorities took 4 months to report it to WHO, compared to 2 weeks taken by China for COVIT-19. And the Spanish Flu of 1918 which killed 50 millions world wide, originated in Kansas USA. It was called Spanish only becaused the Spanish authorities were the only people who officially identifed and tried to fight against it - like China with COVIT-19. Apparently because of this WHO no longer assign a pendamic with a name of any country.
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@William SARS and COVID-19 are not "versions of the flu".
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A few weeks ago Tom Cotton was spinning a similar theory with Chinese biowarfare labs as the source of Corona. What goes around comes around.
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@Thomas J Pain "Human-animal interactions and bat coronavirus spillover potential among rural residents in Southern China" published September 2019 ----
"Serum samples collected from study participants were analyzed using newly developed IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays"..."for four specific coronaviruses: SARSr-CoV (DQ071615, Bat SARS coronavirus Rp3, NP)"... "conjugated monoclonal antibody (Kyab Biotech Co., Ltd, Wuhan, China) was used as the secondary antibody with different dilution ratios for different coronaviruses. 100 serum samples collected from healthy people in Wuhan were tested using this ELISA kit to set up the cutoff value"
view the original paper here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590053619300308
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Trump must be pleased that the game is now in his wheelhouse, being played on the only level that he knows well & operates best on: Unsubstantiated blame, finger pointing, & absurd conspiracy theories.
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There is a dichotomy that one must hold in one’s head that China could be so weak to allow the US military to plant a highly potent bioweapon inside the heart of China without anybody noticing but at the same time that China is so mighty that it is a superpower on par with the USA, and that it would rightfully retaliate against such an attack with an even mightier military response. The two notions cannot both be right.
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@SP
There is a dichotomy that one must hold in one’s head that the US could be so weak as to allow two planes to be commandeered in US airspace and flown with impunity over Manhattan and into two landmark skyscrapers... and that it would retaliate against such an attack with an even mightier military response....
Where is sanity?
Tit for tat. The Minister's tweets are no rival for Trump's recurring retweets of conspiracy theories and his daily disinformation campaign.
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I'd believe it except that the government is clearly showing they have no idea of how to contain it.
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We need our political leaders the world over to start acting like mature adults. We only seem to have one at the moment, in Germany.
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I'm an American living in Vietnam, and I am profoundly sad at the way China bullies it's neighbours and engages in nefarious activities like this fake news campaign so very, very often.
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Actually, I have just checked, the other spokesman’s of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs lowered their tune by claiming that the scientific community and the international society have diverse opinions on the origin of this virus, and they believed it is a matter of science, not politics.
I guess spokesman Zhao has a very big mouth.
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This speaker’s outspoken personal style was a shock among even the government officials in China. His opinion I don’t think represents the Government. We will just have to wait and see how long he can keep his job after pulling this stunt. Also, the US army biological lab origination theory was not hatched in China. It stems from an article by Larry Romanoff from the Canadian Centre for Research on Globalization.
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@Angel
"Also, the US army biological lab origination theory was not hatched in China."
True, the 'idea' has been circulating for a while now.
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@Angel Mr. Romanoff has slightly less credibility than Alex Jones of Infowars infamy has. The Canadian Centre for Research on Globalization sounds impressive, but it's a blog for conspiracy theorists.
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@SJ Problem is conspiracy theories abound in times of chaos, especially when there is no transparent, trustworthy, responsible, adult in a leadership role. Propaganda works all too well in such an environment.
How many conspiracies have become mainstream, seeded from Alex Jones and his ilk's imaginings. So many, that it has all but become the norm to nurture the seed when it fits an agenda, knowing there are many people who will uncritically, unthinkingly take it on board to uphold their own worldview and prejudice.
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When I was in Asia for several months, I was a guest at a small dinner party at a local restaurant. I had been acquainted and friendly with the host for several years. He was Chinese but did not live in China. Something I said that was polite and inoffensive triggered a crazy outburst of profanities about America and the CIA. The only American in the group, I became a surrogate for anti-American passions, totally unreasonably. Later, it was suspected that I was close to the CIA - completely false, even irrational. Since then, I perceived a poorly veiled anti-American undercurrent I did not understand. I am privy to chat groups in Asia that expressed the belief that the Wuhan virus was man-made by America and exported to China. They say the virus was in America before China and was mis-identified as normal pneumonia, then weaponized and exported. I do not know how to argue with irrational people. It appears the propaganda apparatus has been successful.
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@Charlie Chan Can
the feeling is mutual.
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@Charlie Chan Can They sound unhinged. It's best to cut out toxic people like that.
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@Charlie Chan Can
The US army biological lab origination theory was not hatched in China. It stems from an article by Larry Romanoff from the Canadian Centre for Research on Globalization.
Yes. Words without careful deliberation are like fuels to fire. Let’s try not to scorch everything base on a hunch of egos and baseless suspicions. The human race can be pathetic that way.
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It really does take the effort of the whole world to hold these two hegemonies back from tearing the world apart.
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No military would purposely deploy a very infectious disease for which it had no cure. The disease would spread to the attacking country, its own troops and its own leadership.
The CT in China is only marginally less stupid than the CT in the US that posits China loosed Coronavirus on itself in order to spread it to the US.
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@Yeah
The circulation of disinformation is not only relegated to China, my friend. Please take some time to read about the biological warfare coverup by American military during 1952-1953 Korean Conflict
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Infectious disease specialists have known for years that the primary risk for zoonotic transmission (species to species) is in the wildlife markets of Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. The Chinese government well knew this but for whatever reason were unable or unwilling to stop the trade. The responsibility for corona virus rests, in large part, on them and consumers and traffickers of those animals.
It really is as simple as that. No transmission, no virus.
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@Andrew
Your presumption is that without those markets there would be no transmission. That is simply not true. Contacts and transmission can occur many other ways than by selling and/or eating these critters. China has closed those markets for good - we shall see what happens next.
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@Andrew Absolutely the case. If there is one silver lining that may come out of all of this is that the mass and pointless destruction of endangered and non- endangered wildlife (I can't even comprehend the tons of pangolin meat) through the wildlife trade might be curtailed. All bogus conspiracy theories aside, I sincerely hope China and the world have learned their lesson.
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Haha. Good job China! Now it’s time for Americans to taste the feel of being blamed, since point fingers is what they are good at. Even CDC said some patients who had “flu” could be COVID-19 last year. Accept it, IT IS FROM AMERICA.
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Was this before or after Trump spun his unfounded "foreign, virus" conspiracy with the help of his FOX friend? This is the human being leading USA? And they say reality TV is harmless entertainment.
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Not surprising. About 3 weeks ago the CBC aired a piece that Russia was broadcasting the same thing to Russians. And the USA is now blaming the EU, not China, for the spread of the virus. It's propaganda, no matter where it comes from.
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@RNS But notice he didn't ban travel from places (UK, Ireland) where he has golf courses.
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It's common knowledge that these communist party officials are uneducated with little knowledge or regard for science and facts, and whose only purpose is to act as bloviating sycophants to defend their party (motto: don't question the party, the party provides everything, the party takes priority, even above mother and father). not dissimilar to North Korean diatribes. Even their own scientists have warned them for decades (they had a 15-year head start) against novel corona viruses post SARS if these wet markets were to continue. Maybe they should listen to their own scientists instead of chest-beating (and this virus does give your chest a beating).
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This is horrible misinformation, just as prominent conservative voices here keep repeating claims about the "Wuhan virus" being associated with a biological laboratory near Wuhan.
Conspiracy theories are memetic, just like viruses. Neither respect national boundaries.
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This is the direct result of Trump's politicization of the virus and xenophobic statements about it. We shouldn't be surprised that totalitarian regimes chafe and retaliate. Trump has destabilized the global stage. Diplomacy has been replaced with unilateralism. Alliances are insecure and no longer credible. That is dangerous, because when bad actors stop believing that alliances will act in concert, they feel more enabled to take their own unilateral actions. Unfortunately, citizens who may opt out from voting against him in the next election do not read the New York Times. They're uninformed and vulnerable to propaganda from domestic and foreign sources.
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@Brett L Give me a break. China isn’t our friend. Never was. They have a long game (before Trump) to beat the US and change the world order so they’re on top.
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@Brett L
who's the totalitarian regime now? or wait, USA is the country by the (rich) people and for the (rich) people, a total democracy paradise
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This tale has been spread in China weeks ago and over the oceans to the west. The CCP propaganda targets to repair its damaged reputation
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Out of an inability to understand: by CCP do you mean “coronavirus” or some reference to (in English acronym) the PRC - People’s Republic of China.
Of course the PRC is spinning it with outrageous tales, as Trump recently declared (without a shred of evidence) that warmer weather will “slow the spread” of the virus - actually it could well increase it - but influenza, an unrelated virus except in regions of anatomy affected, can be easier to survive in summer than winter because of the lower damage of secondary bacterial pneumonia.
In other words, pure spin and urban legend.
Expect the amoral power-hungry to say whatever they think will help their situation.
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@Susanna by lashing out emotionally relying on infantile "no, you!" defense. They only hire those who can clap the loudest or who can scold the angriest. CCP is as CCP does. It's no wonder the brain drain has been steady.
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@Eatoin Shrdlu
CCP = Chinese Communist Party. It's the accepted acronym.
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It would have been nice if this article addressed why the Chinese think this virus originated in America, namely explaining or disproving the Chinese claim that the US is the only country with all five types of the virus from which all others have descended. Wuhan in China has only one type, rendering it more of a "branch" than a "tree."
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@Alex It works the other way - the Wuhan single strain is the ‘trunk of the tree’, the five strains in the US are ‘branches’ descended from the original strain. Which points to an origin in China.
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@BlueNorth Alex meant 5 "generations". Generation as in how far or how close genetically to the original animal hosted virus that is not able to infect humans. From the huge volume of Chinese cases, the genetic sequencing found generation 3 and generation 4, but from the small number of US cases they found all 5 generations. Trunk would be from generation 1. This should not be that hard to prove or disprove.
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Memo to the politicians of the world, especially PRC and USA: Can you stop blaming the US Military, President Obama, the Europeans, the dog, the cat,... Just blame the virus and just tell us, how serious it is, what we can do about it, and most importantly what you as political leaders, your scientists and your government are doing about it.
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@Wilbray Thiffault
Apparently what you suggest is not an option since it would fail to rile up the "base".
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No surprise....this is PRECISELY what we would expect to see from a gov't-controlled media long used to proliferate specific policy messaging.
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This is the same kind of thing Trump does. Spreading falsehoods about threats from foreigners.
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Well this seems incredibly dangerous and like an astonishing provocation. What's next: refusing to sell masks and respirators in the West? If only the world had some smart, ethical leaders right now.
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@Susan The Chinese have already made this threat and, given they are the source of many pharmaceutical precursors for US pharmaceutical companies, we should take it seriously. We should decouple from China as much and as fast as we can even if we suffer short term financial challenges. I don’t care much for executive orders in general regardless of whom the President may be, but one ordering all production of drugs onshore by a date certain or at least in allied countries should be put in effect at once.
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@T Smith, I can't believe that our leaders have let such things happen in the first place! Who thought it was a good idea to literally outsource over 95% of our critical medical resources to our #1 enemy?
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Ah....but all the Bloviating about low pharmaceutical prices. Trump, Sanders and many others talk about lowering prescription drugs. How do you think we do that if not outsourcing to Asia and other low cost producers ?
What a tangled web we weave.
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