The Coronavirus Coverup

monkeymania's picture

Has the coronavirus cracked the great firewall of China? I Inside Story

China controls the internet more than just about anywhere in the world. However, the censors are struggling to contain the outrage at the coronavirus outbreak. There's widespread anger that the disease has killed Li Wenliang, one of the first doctors to sound the alarm over the new virus. He was arrested by police and forced to confess to "spreading rumours". Users of China's social media network Weibo described his death as a national humiliation. Even state media is backing public calls for government leaders to say sorry for silencing him. Can China's leaders contain the online anger about the cover-up?

 

Hilarious: "Chinese society enjoys freedom of speech...and access to information.................under the law" That is comedy gold right there.

 

 

5
Average: 5 (7 votes)

Comments

monkeymania's picture

Interesting that wearing masks has allowed Chinese citizens a small level of anonymity which has allowed them to speak out more than ever before.

+1
+2
-1
Vote comment up/down
danmanjones's picture

Dr Li wasn't a whistleblower.

https://worldaffairs.blog/2020/02/08/was-the-wuhan-doctor-a-brave-whistleblower-silenced-by-the-government/

 

If anyone "blew the whistle" it was Dr Zhang Jixianji, an actual expert in disease control working at the hospital in Wuhan investigating the outbreak. She reported the findings to 4 hospitals in the area & the Wuhan CDC on Jan 27, 3 days before Dr Li made his social media post. 3 weeks later human-to-human transmition was confirmed & it became an emergency.

 

Only Mongolians can bring down China's great walls.

+1
-3
-1
Vote comment up/down
sal9000's picture
front page

1 the link you posted is a pro-china only blog.

2 it makes no refference to dr zhang.

3 it does say "It couldn’t say anything concrete about the virus until a full genomic sequence was concluded, which was published on Jan 10". anything dr zhang said was to the gov.

4 the convo dr li was having was at 6am. the msg from Wuhan CDC was at 10pm on the 30th of december

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak_in_December_2019_%E2%80%93_January_2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak_in_February_2020#

 

 

 

+1
+2
-1
Vote comment up/down
danmanjones's picture

1. Is it factually correct or not?

2. Dr Zhang alerted the Wuhan CDC & 4 other hospitals in Wuhan on 27th December. Whether this is in that blog post or not is irrelevant.

3. Dr Zhang alerted hospitals & Wuhan CDC, not simply "the government"

4. The appropriate people were already informed days before Dr Li shared his SARS opinion with 7 people in a private chat group on December 30.

 
These are the rules of crisis management according to a major American PR firm:

1. Assign Accountability

2. Understand the Issues

3. Prepare and Be Proactive

4. Respond Immediately

5. Find Allies

6. Minimize the Response

7. Have One Message

[sauce]

 

Can you tell me which of those 7 rules was bent or broken?

 

+1
-2
-1
Vote comment up/down
sal9000's picture
front page

“A healthy society should not have just one voice."  -Dr Li Wenliang

 

a quote from the blog

"Hindsight is 20-20: Of course, looking back, the government and scientists could have warned the hospitals in Wuhan and helped them to identify and isolate the coronavirus patients. However, at that point, nobody had died from the virus and the sample size of patients was only about 40. Tough call."

+1
+1
-1
Vote comment up/down
danmanjones's picture

“A healthy society should not have just one voice."  -Dr Li Wenliang

This is just a general opinion about society & flies in the face of every crisis management protocol that I've seen. I'm not gonna condemn the guy, he did what he thought was the right thing to do & came from a good place but he wasn't really qualified or informed enough to give a medical opinion & what he posted was incorrect.

 

What are your thoughts on that 2nd quote?

 

+1
-1
-1
Vote comment up/down
lawngnome's picture

Best let the qualified people announce it properly an entire month later eh?

 

 

+1
0
-1
Vote comment up/down
danmanjones's picture

Dec 27 - Wuhan CDC & 4 other hospitals in Wuhan alerted

Dec 30 - Rumours start

Dec 31 - Seafood market closed [link]

Jan 1 - WHO was already in the loop [link]

Jan 3 - WHO & relevant countries officially alerted, emergency actions underway

Jan 6 - Level II emergency protocol activated

Jan 8 - China CDC made official announcement

Jan 10 - Genome sequenced & shared with the world

Jan 15 - China CDC emergency response activated to Level I (highest level)

Jan 16 - Strict exit screening from Wuhan began

Jan 19 - Human-to-human transmission confirmed

Jan 20-21 - President addresses country, country mobilizes

 

That's around 3 weeks, the appropriate people were being kept informed about what was known as it unfolded. Was it perfect? No it never is. Was it more effective than the US/Mexico response to Swine Flu in 2009? The spread has been almost completely confined to East Asia so yeah it seems like it has been.

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316?query=featured_coronavirus

+1
0
-1
Vote comment up/down
lawngnome's picture

Daaammnnnn. Imagine being under that much surveillance all the time, it'd suck soooo much ass.

 

Cameras is one thing, but they are ALL UP IN YOUR SHIT.     Fuck the CCP, Fuck Xi .

+1
+1
-1
Vote comment up/down
danmanjones's picture

We're under that much surveillance but it's less transparent.

 
US govt uses aerial death squads to kill people (and anyone near them) based on their patterns of online activity.

 

+1
-3
-1
Vote comment up/down
lawngnome's picture

Musta been looking up some super spicy memes.

+1
0
-1
Vote comment up/down