General News Thread

[Tobias]

A point I saw recently put it rather succinctly. “There is a very valid argument which states you don’t have to believe China either intentionally created the disease or even that it sprang from that lab at all, but certainly is responsible for the way their government handled the initial time period.”

the way the Chinese government handled it is directly responsible for significant loss of human life due to initial downplaying of the plague and delaying vital information being sent so as to make it easier for them to hoard resources

[Twelveseal]

Simplest position that seems accurate to me is this: everybody screwed the pooch on this one, China just did it first and the rest of us are on sloppy seconds.

China is far from the sole reason why everything's gone to hell. Seems like every government fucks up once this thing makes landfall, regardless of how well-prepared they seem. It's like a damn kaiju. A lot of those problems stem from incompetence in our own leaders; people too concerned with public image and ideology and personal prosperity and political power grabs to see the forest for the damn trees. However, some of our current problems are a direct result the exact same thing happening in China. We all fucked up.

Now we're all stuck dealing with this nightmare, so there's not a lot of point in folks on the ground like us bitching at each other over who's at fault. That's exactly what our dumbass leaders are already doing. We don't need to add to their stupid. My opinion, fwiw.

[aldeayeah]

@Tobias: you're saying it as if it's a factual thing, but it's far from proven.

https://time.com/5831511/us-intel-ch...p-coronavirus/

An alternative explanation is, because of the long delay it takes from infection to developing serious symptoms, by the time China knew exactly what they had in their hands, it was too late, and that's why their alerts seemed "late" from outside.

As for the medical supply hoarding thing, any significant increase in demand from a country as big as China would empty the stocks pretty quick, even with no government conspiracy behind.

Real or not, the Chinese conspiracy is mainly a smoke bomb to distract the public from the main culprit of unnecessary life loss, which was the fact that most countries didn't take the threat seriously enough after SARS, etc, failed to become pandemics. With the US Government as the one of the worst perpetrators, considering they had more time and resources than pretty one anyone else to prepare for the inevitable outbreak.

I remember reading the news about what the US was doing when the Italy outbreak blew up and the other European outbreaks were starting. It was incredible - it was as if the US government was living in a whole different world. The current crisis was very evitable.

[Tobias]

That link you posted seems more like it adds evidence to the idea that China withheld information considering it notes that through sales patterns it does indeed seem China was acting bizarrely in such a way as to increase its own supply of relevant equipment while still downplaying the threat of the virus.

i almost wonder if you had intended to post a different link?

[rxrx]

Wuhan's government tried to hide the thing, and the central government had to remove them when it is obvious that they are downplaying the issue. Then the lockup begins, and by that time the world knows it is highly contiguous, and we had to find ways to lockup while ensuring people can live. Even the central realize shit will hit the fan, which then comes the drastic measures.

Look, just like the States, the Central cannot fully control a province, and it is when they did that things began to work in an orderly manner. We blame the Wuhan government here, but the Central did a good job in our eyes this time round.

[Trubo]

No one is saying otherwise to that. However, you can't divorce from reality the problem of being unable to properly handle the crisis when practically no additional medical supplies were available due to China hoarding all of them during the most important period of time. Like McJon pointed out, orders to supermarkets to limit quantities sold doesn't help much when the stock as a whole is gone.

Edit: And if you're going to keep claiming that it was solely civilian driven, then how exactly is it that every major nation had most, if not all, of its surplus bought out before China started being forthcoming on this? That's a level of organization far beyond what unorganized civilians can pull off.

[rxrx]

No one is saying otherwise to that. However, you can't divorce from reality the problem of being unable to properly handle the crisis when practically no additional medical supplies were available due to China hoarding all of them during the most important period of time. Like McJon pointed out, orders to supermarkets to limit quantities sold doesn't help much when the stock as a whole is gone.

When we bought them, it is our most important period of time. When outside are trying to inspire rebellions, weak men of Asia theory, God's punishment on China is running rampant, we are using those stuff to save lives. The virus can hide for at least 14 days before symptoms appear, and it can still spread through this time is the main problem with response.

By the time the virus went wild outside, we can produce back those goods, but since there were too many sub-par suppliers and countries love to buy from companies NOT recommended by the CCP, they get lousy goods and point fingers. I was questioning back then why they choose to buy from those that are not recognized in China, but managed to pay for the licence outside. Since people demanded it, we go stricter with QC which unfortunately hamper speed in providing them, then we are blamed for holding back goods and hoarding them.

[SpoonyViking]

Didn't the US know about this thing since back in January? When Trump was golfing and some Senators took the opportunity to play the stock market?

[rxrx]

Didn't the US know about this thing since back in January? When Trump was golfing and some Senators took the opportunity to play the stock market?

It was seen as a Chinese problem, it would never come to USA, and powerful white genes make them strong against this virus when compared to weak Asians. Isn't Trump trying to sell the theory that the virus dates way back to October when China held the Military World Games? About how CCP let the virus out on purpose to try infect the world?

[Trubo]

When we bought them, it is our most important period of time.

Yeah, and China was downplaying the fuck out of how dangerous the virus was.

When outside are trying to inspire rebellions, weak men of Asia theory, God's punishment on China is running rampant, we are using those stuff to save lives. The virus can hide for at least 14 days before symptoms appear, and it can still spread through this time is the main problem with response.

Sounds like either a stupid comment from a Trump-level administration or something that gets published in a trashy tabloid.

By the time the virus went wild outside, we can produce back those goods, but since there were too many sub-par suppliers and countries love to buy from companies NOT recommended by the CCP, they get lousy goods and point fingers. I was questioning back then why they choose to buy from those that are not recognized in China, but managed to pay for the licence outside. Since people demanded it, we go stricter with QC which unfortunately hamper speed in providing them, then we are blamed for holding back goods and hoarding them.

That these companies can still operate even when not recommended by ruling party speaks plenty on how China feels about sub-par products coming out.

[aldeayeah]

That link you posted seems more like it adds evidence to the idea that China withheld information considering it notes that through sales patterns it does indeed seem China was acting bizarrely in such a way as to increase its own supply of relevant equipment while still downplaying the threat of the virus.

i almost wonder if you had intended to post a different link?

I posted the right link. It only says there was a "statistically significant increase" in imports/decrease in export of medical equipment in the early stages of the outbreak - not the blatant buyout that the US seems to be accusing them of. That increase may well be due to a natural increase in demand due to the possibility of what happened, er, happening.

So far I've seen no evidence of big buyouts happening before the Hubei quarantine, at which point the severity of the crisis was public knowledge. If those reports exist, do tell.

And again, if this had happened in the West, the country with the initial outbreak would totally have taken advantage of the information gap (be it hours, days or weeks) to hoard (oops, "secure") the necessary equipment before others realized the full extent of the threat.

And in any case, the US government wouldn't have realized the full extent of the threat, because as it's widely documented, they were busy with their heads stuck up their asses in late January/early February, which was the right time for decisive preventive action.

[rxrx]

Sounds like either a stupid comment from a Trump-level administration or something that gets published in a trashy tabloid.

That these companies can still operate even when not recommended by ruling party speaks plenty on how China feels about sub-par products coming out.

Once again, we knew shit about the virus, and 14 days minimum before it runs wild makes it hard to tell how deadly it was. Not to forget Wuhan hid the info even from the Central, so shit hit the fan which force its hands and take over from there, making lockups throughout the country. Throughout these time, we were bombarded with western propaganda on the net, WSJ selling weak men of Asia etc, hired guns talking about how this is China's Chernobyl etc. We were fed up with the Wuhan government and is glad when the PLA and Central come in to take over from there, and new discoveries improved our way of dealing with the virus.

There are many companies in China, and before that they didn't really manage to cause trouble. However, many went into the business of producing masks during these times and it is hard to the Central to do much, so at most give a recommended list made up of reputable companies. IMO, both sides are at fault, us for letting people buy these shitty stuff, and foreign companies/governments for choosing to buy these shitty stuff instead from recommended list. The question unanswered is, WTF are they buying from them and even giving them the licence to do so when they are not even recommended at all? Because it is cheap, or because it is good for political points so they can complain China is selling sub-standard goods because they choose to buy em?

[Mattias]

Fun segue

Almost 20000 drivers in Georgia given licenses without testing since covid

Damn, I'd heard of that initiative, but didn't expect it would be that many people.

Car insurance prices are going to skyrocket in a few months there, I'm guessing.

[Trubo]

Was watching the following video, the poll numbers they reference can be found here, and the 236% Yes, 40% No, 24% Unsure in reference to replacing Biden as nominee can be gathered by averaging all Democrat responses on page 55. Not that surprising, people under 45 are the most opposed to Biden, with older people more in favor of Biden, though it was kind of interesting to see that under 45 was about even on replacing vs keeping Biden, with keeping Biden still being the majority view. All that said, if Biden wants to shore up his numbers, he needs to start giving the younger people reasons to vote for him beyond vote shaming tactics: some meaningful administrative positions would help, as would some EO promises.



Edit: And now I realize I got the %s mixed up, so trying to figure out where that 36% came from. Looks like they averaged the Democrat and Republican polled people planning to vote for Biden and Trump, respectively. Kinda surprised that many Republican-leaning people are hoping for Biden to get replaced. Would have been interesting if they polled them further on who they'd like Biden replaced by.

[Pendant]

Joe Biden just came out in favor of coups.

[Tobias]

Was watching the following video, the poll numbers they reference can be found here, and the 236% Yes, 40% No, 24% Unsure in reference to replacing Biden as nominee can be gathered by averaging all Democrat responses on page 55. Not that surprising, people under 45 are the most opposed to Biden, with older people more in favor of Biden, though it was kind of interesting to see that under 45 was about even on replacing vs keeping Biden, with keeping Biden still being the majority view. All that said, if Biden wants to shore up his numbers, he needs to start giving the younger people reasons to vote for him beyond vote shaming tactics: some meaningful administrative positions would help, as would some EO promises.



Edit: And now I realize I got the %s mixed up, so trying to figure out where that 36% came from. Looks like they averaged the Democrat and Republican polled people planning to vote for Biden and Trump, respectively. Kinda surprised that many Republican-leaning people are hoping for Biden to get replaced. Would have been interesting if they polled them further on who they'd like Biden replaced by.

speaking as someone who talks to republicans near daily, while this post makes no decision as to the veracity of such beliefs, quite a few republicans were hoping Biden would not win the primary because he was a worrisome opponent. I was actually reading a Fox News article earlier this morning which was some pretty blatant wishful thinking talking about how Biden was likely to be replaced on the ticket.

[Twelveseal]

Makes sense. Biden's far enough to the Right he could actually peel moderate Republicans who don't like Trump's behavior or Covid shenanigans.

[rxrx]

From here asking you guys, how much better will Bidan be at handling the virus if he does win?

[Tobias]

He won’t be arguing to repeal Obamacare during it, will not be downplaying the pandemic to convince people to go back to work, and probably won’t encourage people to drink bleach

[rxrx]

He won’t be arguing to repeal Obamacare during it, will not be downplaying the pandemic to convince people to go back to work, and probably won’t encourage people to drink bleach

Injecting disinfectant is the worse idea.