Coronavirus Outbreak

[Tim Sheens]

The medical staff and the doctors at the coal face in Italy and similarly affected countries deserve bravery awards. Already 13 Italian doctors have lost their lives from trying to save others, some literally working until they dropped and many more of their colleagues are currently fighting for their lives.

I will be very disappointed if the defence force here has not already been mobilising ans begun loading their transports in preparation for an outbreak.

 

[JD Tiger]

I honestly dont understand why there is any debate about it.

We've had lots of virus outbreaks throughout the world. We've been warned about this for years. It's not just a China wet market problem. The problem is much more complex than that. It's like you are looking for a single scapegoat and an easy target but it's not that simple.

It's not that China have done a great job or that their behavior is exemplary but maybe they've handled this better than western countries. I know that this is a subjective opinion but it should be considered and there is some validity in this opinion.

My take is your opinion is too focused on China and it's not a realistic assessment of the situation.

China caused this, that should be at the forefront of every discussion about this. They are directly to blame for this starting.

Comparing how they are handling it now, (as in not at the start when they denied, covered up, silenced and incarcerated people) to how Australia and other western countries are handling it now, is I believe a flawed comparison. China are three months in, and over the worst, we in Australia are just beginning to be hit with this.

That being said, unfortunately I have no confidence that out government will handle this well, so far I think they are bring much too slow and cautious and that lethargy will cost more lives.

I hope we look at the South Korea's and other countries who are being very stringent and plauteauing the effect of this virus, they are doing imo much better than we are so far.

 

[Furious1]

I honestly dont understand why there is any debate about it.

We've had lots of virus outbreaks throughout the world. We've been warned about this for years. It's not just a China wet market problem. The problem is much more complex than that. It's like you are looking for a single scapegoat and an easy target but it's not that simple.

It's not that China have done a great job or that their behavior is exemplary but maybe they've handled this better than western countries. I know that this is a subjective opinion but it should be considered and there is some validity in this opinion.

My take is your opinion is too focused on China and it's not a realistic assessment of the situation.

China caused this, that should be at the forefront of every discussion about this. They are directly to blame for this starting.

Comparing how they are handling it now, (as in not at the start when they denied, covered up, silenced and incarcerated people) to how Australia and other western countries are handling it now, is I believe a flawed comparison. China are three months in, and over the worst, we in Australia are just beginning to be hit with this.

**That being said, unfortunately I have no confidence that out government will handle this well, so far I think they are bring much too slow and cautious and that lethargy will cost more lives.

I hope we look at the South Korea's and other countries who are being very stringent and plauteauing the effect of this virus, they are doing imo much better than we are so far.**

Its a bit of a tough one mate. I saw lots of kids ( teenagers) at the local shopping centre yesterday who weren't at school. Now if parents want to keep their kids out of school, i understand that, but it kind of defeats the purpose if they are taking them out to the shops anyway. So really, if the Government turned around tomorrow and shut things down, not only would people moan and groan about it, but i think there is a fair proportion that would still be out and about, locally anyway.

Of course the Government could tell everyone not to come out of their houses for a month, but that would go down like a lead balloon in this country.

 

[Tiger5150]

It's human nature to want to blame someone when things go wrong, but some of this China blame is a mix of misguided opinion and sometimes, blatant racism.

It is NOT racism and it is not misguided opinion to discuss facts. It's a fact that it started in a wet market in Wuhan where animals have been poorly treated and slaughtered without any regulation or sanitation, a situation that has already resulted in previous zoonotic virus outbreaks (SARS, H1N1, Avian). It is also a fact (source Washington Post & London Times) that the CCP actively tried to suppress knowledge of the virus, detained doctors and broke into the lab that identified the virus and destroyed the vials (Sun Yang? noticing a pattern?).

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

It amazes me that people can bag Trump, who is a convicted Rapist and Felon for sport but the CCP are off limits for discussion.

 

[Cairnstigers]

Gladstone Regional Council closed as of tomorrow ..only thing left open is the dumps

So your saying Gladstone is open for business as usual then

This is funny..Queenslanders turning their two heads on each other in times of crisis..not surprising tho..

Two heads are better then one Geo

 

[Tim Sheens]

31 confirmed cases now from the Stanwell Tops wedding, apparently brought in by a US guest, shows just how readily transmissible this virus is. At the very least I think it pertinent to closely monitor and test the schools of any of their children, if not close them immediately.

 

[kevinmcguinness]

I honestly dont understand why there is any debate about it.

We've had lots of virus outbreaks throughout the world. We've been warned about this for years. It's not just a China wet market problem. The problem is much more complex than that. It's like you are looking for a single scapegoat and an easy target but it's not that simple.

It's not that China have done a great job or that their behavior is exemplary but maybe they've handled this better than western countries. I know that this is a subjective opinion but it should be considered and there is some validity in this opinion.

My take is your opinion is too focused on China and it's not a realistic assessment of the situation.

**China caused this, that should be at the forefront of every discussion about this. They are directly to blame for this starting.**

what does that achieve? How does it help human kind at the present moment?

 

[jirskyr]

I agree the Chinese Government needs to be more transparent.

Hahaha good luck with that. It's a close-run race with North Korea, Russia and China for the LEAST transparent governments in the world.

Government transparency can only really be achieved by change from within the country, which is hard to achieve when you are a Communist nation that in all reality is an oligarchy. I guarantee the Communist Party of China (CPC) will spin and spin and spin this event at home, away from their own responsibility or own failures, and towards some scapegoat. Forget the global social media disinformation; it's meaningless to quote some Chinese bogan on twitter spouting crap about the potential US conspiracy to unleash corona on the Chinese population.

Chinese people in China know where the virus originated. They have internet and more or less know China was the first to have it, the first to struggle under the weight of it and they know the theory for where it came from. They were the originators of SARS too, and their next-door neighbours kicked off MERS, so the population knows that they tend to be a hotbed of viral outbreak. There's 1.2B of them, it should not come as any surprise that they have issues with infectious disease.

BUT - they also know the government will crack down severely in the result of a crisis. And having had a booming economy and quality of life improvements for the past few decades, China has the ability to absorb a crisis in ways they could not before. China was an absolute basket-case in the 20th century, several famines, absolutely crushed during the world wars. They were as much of a world power as their soccer team is right now.

But it's different in 2020. My guess is that the people don't love the state but they do trust it to crack down hard when necessary. I know a fair number of Chinese living in China, through my job, but that's only a tiny sample obviously. The state will then spin this all, and maybe the population buys that spin and maybe it doesn't. It doesn't really matter for us as Australians, because for certain nobody in China will start an uprising at this time and there will be no change to the power and control of the CPC.

At most, there may be global political pressure on China when coronavirus calms down, and China may or may not do some "public displays of response" such as shutting down or more tightly regulating wet markets. I don't know if China much cares about negative global response to corona, because as much as folks might like to sanction China, it's just not that straightforward. It's not like Iran or North Korea where you can sanction to your heart's content without much fear of reprisal or negative impact on your own markets. China is a huge global supplier and huge global consumer - Australia's economy would go to hell if China suddenly stopped buying our food and mining output.

 

[trentrunciman]

I agree the Chinese Government needs to be more transparent.

Hahaha good luck with that. It's a close-run race with North Korea, Russia and China for the LEAST transparent governments in the world.

Government transparency can only really be achieved by change from within the country, which is hard to achieve when you are a Communist nation that in all reality is an oligarchy. I guarantee the Communist Party of China (CPC) will spin and spin and spin this event at home, away from their own responsibility or own failures, and towards some scapegoat. Forget the global social media disinformation; it's meaningless to quote some Chinese bogan on twitter spouting crap about the potential US conspiracy to unleash corona on the Chinese population.

Chinese people in China know where the virus originated. They have internet and more or less know China was the first to have it, the first to struggle under the weight of it and they know the theory for where it came from. They were the originators of SARS too, and their next-door neighbours kicked off MERS, so the population knows that they tend to be a hotbed of viral outbreak. There's 1.2B of them, it should not come as any surprise that they have issues with infectious disease.

BUT - they also know the government will crack down severely in the result of a crisis. And having had a booming economy and quality of life improvements for the past few decades, China has the ability to absorb a crisis in ways they could not before. China was an absolute basket-case in the 20th century, several famines, absolutely crushed during the world wars. They were as much of a world power as their soccer team is right now.

But it's different in 2020. My guess is that the people don't love the state but they do trust it to crack down hard when necessary. I know a fair number of Chinese living in China, through my job, but that's only a tiny sample obviously. The state will then spin this all, and maybe the population buys that spin and maybe it doesn't. It doesn't really matter for us as Australians, because for certain nobody in China will start an uprising at this time and there will be no change to the power and control of the CPC.

At most, there may be global political pressure on China when coronavirus calms down, and China may or may not do some "public displays of response" such as shutting down or more tightly regulating wet markets. I don't know if China much cares about negative global response to corona, because as much as folks might like to sanction China, it's just not that straightforward. It's not like Iran or North Korea where you can sanction to your heart's content without much fear of reprisal or negative impact on your own markets. China is a huge global supplier and huge global consumer - Australia's economy would go to hell if China suddenly stopped buying our food and mining output.

Yeah, I agree. I'm no expert on China. But I've lived in Shenyang and my ex lives there (Chinese) generally Chinese don't like their government. But which countries do?

Obviously they did some terrible things during the great leap forward CCR but they've done a lot to lift people out of poverty. There are still many over there living below the poverty line.

But I think it more constructive to talk about the disease management etc

Edit- on the positive things are getting much better in China. Let's hope same goes for the rest of us soon. Hope the Persians can celebrate their special day today with their family and friends

 

[earl]

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

This is though at best extremely simplistic. I don't believe it's factual at all.

Did the Chinese government produce this disease - no. Did the Chinese people who demand these food products - yes. Did the Chinese people who participate in these wet markets - yes. Did the Chinese government hide the issue - yes. Did western governments across the world react slowly and belittle the issue (I'd call that hiding the issues as well) - yes.

People would have been eating like that for years. China is a massive country. Viruses come from all over the world. It's a product of eating animals.

There are lots of things to criticize the Chinese government for and we are only just getting started but too make out that the Chinese government are the cause of this is to me completely unrealistic. Are the Italian government to blame for the devastation in their country ? Who is to blame ?

Anyway my opinion is that some people want to play a simplistic blame game of China and they are going to cop it but I'm not sure how realistic that blame game is. Interestingly we have on the news people going out and partying in this environment. Is China to blame for that ?

To me the real questions that we have to ask ourselves are questions like:-

Do we have to educate the world on hygiene practices in relation to eating meat ?
Do we have to educate the world on various meat products being unsafe ? For instance do we have to stop everyone eating all animal products period. I think bats for instance are very disease prone animals but have you looked up how many virus outbreaks occur within contamination between other animals and humans. I think that is how HIV started. Have you heard of Mad Cow disease.
Do we have to educate the world on how to react to these outbreaks ?
Can we police any of these actions that we should take forward ?
How do we develop vaccines to handle these situations ?

China will have to take a lot of blame but if you take a step back and think about it the implications should really be far from just a simplistic statement that the Chinese government is bad and they caused this. That is to me not a factual position and I'd personally call it delusional.

 

[Tiger5150]

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

This is though at best extremely simplistic. I don't believe it's factual at all.

Did the Chinese government produce this disease - no. Did the Chinese people who demand these food products - yes. Did the Chinese people who participate in these wet markets - yes. Did the Chinese government hide the issue - yes. Did western governments across the world react slowly and belittle the issue (I'd call that hiding the issues as well) - yes.

People would have been eating like that for years. China is a massive country. Viruses come from all over the world. It's a product of eating animals.

There are lots of things to criticize the Chinese government for and we are only just getting started but too make out that the Chinese government are the cause of this is to me completely unrealistic. Are the Italian government to blame for the devastation in their country ? Who is to blame ?

Anyway my opinion is that some people want to play a simplistic blame game of China and they are going to cop it but I'm not sure how realistic that blame game is. Interestingly we have on the news people going out and partying in this environment. Is China to blame for that ?

To me the real questions that we have to ask ourselves are questions like:-

Do we have to educate the world on hygiene practices in relation to eating meat ?
Do we have to educate the world on various meat products being unsafe ? For instance do we have to stop everyone eating all animal products period. I think bats for instance are very disease prone animals but have you looked up how many virus outbreaks occur within contamination between other animals and humans. I think that is how HIV started. Have you heard of Mad Cow disease.
Do we have to educate the world on how to react to these outbreaks ?
Can we police any of these actions that we should take forward ?
How do we develop vaccines to handle these situations ?

China will have to take a lot of blame but if you take a step back and think about it the implications should really be far from just a simplistic statement that the Chinese government is bad and they caused this. That is to me not a factual position and I'd personally call it delusional.

Of course the CCP didnt ***create*** this virus but it was created as a result of poor regulation (of the wet market) which has caused previous outbreaks but lets let that slide.

The point is, I didnt wade into this discussion with the intent of blaming the CCP or anyone for it, I merely responded to Formerguest who asked if any of us thought that the Aussie Govt would have handled it as well as the CCP. The CCP did ***not*** handle this well and IMO are responsible for it spreading to the rest of the world.

Whilst we discuss things that are factual or delusional and to again address the original question that prompted my involvement in this discussion consider this. Doctors in Wuhan discover a virus causing strange and deadly acute respiratory stress and pneumonia and killing people. To the Doctors it looks like a new form of SARS (which also originated from the same area). Do the CCP either.....

a) Act immediately using their almost complete control because of disregard for human rights and knowledge learned from previously bringing the SARS outbreak under control......

or

b) Arrest and detain the doctors responsible for discovering the new virus, silence whistleblowers, raid the testing lab and destroy evidence, report to the WHO that there is no human transmission and allow 5 million people to leave the province? (source London Times & Washington Post)

Consider which of these actions were taken, extrapolate that out to differences in outcomes and then come back to me and we can have a discussion on delusional POV's.

 

[earl]

The CCP did not handle this well and IMO are responsible for it spreading to the rest of the world.

This is an opinion and I believe it's completely unrealistic. You are partially correct in that they should have stopped all travel immediately and locked the country down.

The thing is no other country has done this and I don't believe any other country would have.

Your opinion that they didn't handle it well isn't backed up by the data. I accept the data is probably really dodgy. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out that much more people died in China that what has been reported however at this time it appears the government that you are so hell bent on criticizing have handled this better than the vast majority of western countries.

No country acted immediately. The impact of reacting immediately has too much of an effect on the economy. One of my kids is at school now.

Your argument doesn't cut it to me. It just comes across as completely delusional especially in relation to how the rest of the world have handled the situation.

Theoretically you are correct but in practice no country has done what you are suggesting.

 

[Guest]

It's human nature to want to blame someone when things go wrong, but some of this China blame is a mix of misguided opinion and sometimes, blatant racism.


It is NOT racism and it is not misguided opinion to discuss facts. It's a fact that it started in a wet market in Wuhan where animals have been poorly treated and slaughtered without any regulation or sanitation, a situation that has already resulted in previous zoonotic virus outbreaks (SARS, H1N1, Avian). It is also a fact (source Washington Post & London Times) that the CCP actively tried to suppress knowledge of the virus, detained doctors and broke into the lab that identified the virus and destroyed the vials (Sun Yang? noticing a pattern?).

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

It amazes me that people can bag Trump, who is a convicted Rapist and Felon for sport but the CCP are off limits for discussion.

Well said.

 

[earl]

It's human nature to want to blame someone when things go wrong, but some of this China blame is a mix of misguided opinion and sometimes, blatant racism.


It is NOT racism and it is not misguided opinion to discuss facts. It's a fact that it started in a wet market in Wuhan where animals have been poorly treated and slaughtered without any regulation or sanitation, a situation that has already resulted in previous zoonotic virus outbreaks (SARS, H1N1, Avian). It is also a fact (source Washington Post & London Times) that the CCP actively tried to suppress knowledge of the virus, detained doctors and broke into the lab that identified the virus and destroyed the vials (Sun Yang? noticing a pattern?).

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

It amazes me that people can bag Trump, who is a convicted Rapist and Felon for sport but the CCP are off limits for discussion.

Well said.

What country has stopped this in it's tracks and how did they do that ? I'd just like some facts in relation to how many countries have been able to stop it straight away.

If you don't have that well then we are talking theoretical actions that no one has taken.

 

[Tiger5150]

The CCP did not handle this well and IMO are responsible for it spreading to the rest of the world.

This is an opinion and I believe it's completely unrealistic. You are partially correct in that they should have stopped all travel immediately and locked the country down.

You are correct in that this solitary quote that you have selected ***is*** an opinion. The parts you left out that London Times and Washington Post reported on of the CCP ***actively, aggressively*** acting to cover this up for a month is not an opinion and frankly I cant understand how anyone could mitigate it or ignore it in a discussion on the non containment and spread of the pandemic.

Your opinion that they didn't handle it well isn't backed up by the data.

Its not? My opinion is 100% supported by the data. When this was first discovered (cases less than 100) the CCP ***actively*** covered it up for a month at least, told the world it didnt exist and locked up people and destroyed evidence to continue the party narrative, allowed over 5 Million people to leave the province. Lets have a look at what the "data" says about that, what does the data say the result of this was? 245000 infections and over 10000 deaths.

You are discussing how Australia and other countries have reacted in trying to control the spread. There was only one government with the capacity to control this virus and that is the CCP but they chose to protect the party and propaganda as the highest priority.

You (and others here) are praising the CCP for "handling this better" than western countries. Those "western countries" are handling the CCP's outbreak. Those deaths in Italy are a result of the CCP letting this thing go.

No country acted immediately.

No other country has arrested and detained doctors, raided labs and lied to the WHO while allowing millions to spread it further.

 

[Guest]

It's human nature to want to blame someone when things go wrong, but some of this China blame is a mix of misguided opinion and sometimes, blatant racism.


It is NOT racism and it is not misguided opinion to discuss facts. It's a fact that it started in a wet market in Wuhan where animals have been poorly treated and slaughtered without any regulation or sanitation, a situation that has already resulted in previous zoonotic virus outbreaks (SARS, H1N1, Avian). It is also a fact (source Washington Post & London Times) that the CCP actively tried to suppress knowledge of the virus, detained doctors and broke into the lab that identified the virus and destroyed the vials (Sun Yang? noticing a pattern?).

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

It amazes me that people can bag Trump, who is a convicted Rapist and Felon for sport but the CCP are off limits for discussion.

Well said.

What country has stopped this in it's tracks and how did they do that ? I'd just like some facts in relation to how many countries have been able to stop it straight away.

If you don't have that well then we are talking theoretical actions that no one has taken.

That's not the point I was addressing in my response to Tigers5150 post.

 

[earl]

@ Tiger5150 - I just want some facts in relation to countries that have done what you have suggested. Just some facts.

 

[earl]

It's human nature to want to blame someone when things go wrong, but some of this China blame is a mix of misguided opinion and sometimes, blatant racism.


It is NOT racism and it is not misguided opinion to discuss facts. It's a fact that it started in a wet market in Wuhan where animals have been poorly treated and slaughtered without any regulation or sanitation, a situation that has already resulted in previous zoonotic virus outbreaks (SARS, H1N1, Avian). It is also a fact (source Washington Post & London Times) that the CCP actively tried to suppress knowledge of the virus, detained doctors and broke into the lab that identified the virus and destroyed the vials (Sun Yang? noticing a pattern?).

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

It amazes me that people can bag Trump, who is a convicted Rapist and Felon for sport but the CCP are off limits for discussion.

Well said.

What country has stopped this in it's tracks and how did they do that ? I'd just like some facts in relation to how many countries have been able to stop it straight away.

If you don't have that well then we are talking theoretical actions that no one has taken.

That's not the point I was addressing in my response to Tigers5150 post.

Maybe not but then your point is meaningless. Just give us some facts on countries who have handled this situation perfectly. I'm not aware of any.

 

[Guest]

It's human nature to want to blame someone when things go wrong, but some of this China blame is a mix of misguided opinion and sometimes, blatant racism.


It is NOT racism and it is not misguided opinion to discuss facts. It's a fact that it started in a wet market in Wuhan where animals have been poorly treated and slaughtered without any regulation or sanitation, a situation that has already resulted in previous zoonotic virus outbreaks (SARS, H1N1, Avian). It is also a fact (source Washington Post & London Times) that the CCP actively tried to suppress knowledge of the virus, detained doctors and broke into the lab that identified the virus and destroyed the vials (Sun Yang? noticing a pattern?).

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

It amazes me that people can bag Trump, who is a convicted Rapist and Felon for sport but the CCP are off limits for discussion.

Well said.

What country has stopped this in it's tracks and how did they do that ? I'd just like some facts in relation to how many countries have been able to stop it straight away.

If you don't have that well then we are talking theoretical actions that no one has taken.

That's not the point I was addressing in my response to Tigers5150 post.

Maybe not but then your point is meaningless. Just give us some facts on countries who have handled this situation perfectly. I'm not aware of any.

It might be meaningless to you Earl, it's not to others.

 

[Tiger5150]

It's human nature to want to blame someone when things go wrong, but some of this China blame is a mix of misguided opinion and sometimes, blatant racism.


It is NOT racism and it is not misguided opinion to discuss facts. It's a fact that it started in a wet market in Wuhan where animals have been poorly treated and slaughtered without any regulation or sanitation, a situation that has already resulted in previous zoonotic virus outbreaks (SARS, H1N1, Avian). It is also a fact (source Washington Post & London Times) that the CCP actively tried to suppress knowledge of the virus, detained doctors and broke into the lab that identified the virus and destroyed the vials (Sun Yang? noticing a pattern?).

These are facts and these are the reasons that this blew up and spread to where it is now. It is not racist. It is not the fault of the Chinese people. It is not criticism of Chinese people.

It amazes me that people can bag Trump, who is a convicted Rapist and Felon for sport but the CCP are off limits for discussion.

Well said.

What country has stopped this in it's tracks and how did they do that ? I'd just like some facts in relation to how many countries have been able to stop it straight away.

If you don't have that well then we are talking theoretical actions that no one has taken.

How many countries have had the opportunity to stop this dead in its tracks and did they take that opportunity?

Clue: The answer is between 0 and 2, and no.