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Whistleblowers silenced by China could have stopped global coronavirus spread | 60 Minutes Australia
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taylor_expansion
1h
Hmm, would be ignored by the WH anyway if not silenced by CCP. Don’t bother us with a flu.
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dragonelite
59m
Didn't China pretty much informed the WHO on 30th of December. I knew Corona was a thing before I went on holiday on 5th of January.
I did a Google search on Corona virus with custom range from halfway December to halfway January in the news section and earliest report was around 6th of January by Bloomberg and the new York times.
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taylor_expansion
55m
Yup, I think people blame China for downplaying the severity of it initially, with typical censorship-like action.
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thesilentlinkin
48m
There's also strong evidence that they knew closer to mid november than late December.
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dragonelite
44m
How can you confirm that given there are strong evidences for it? Would love to see a good link from a trusted source. Not a page 15 google search site.
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thesilentlinkin
40m
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thirtysixtyninety
30m
Isn't that assessment retroactive? E.g. person gets sick, COVID19 is eventually understood, then they trace back to the earliest person they can find?
If finding the first case of what will become a pandemic immediately was possible, then there would never be pandemics...
Edit: Confirmed. Your link is to the guardian, but the guardian just refers to a South China Morning Post article, which specifically cites this as backwards looking mapping exercise:
Scientists have been trying to map the pattern of the early transmission of Covid-19 since an epidemic was reported in the central China city of Wuhan in January, two months before the outbreak became a global health crisis.
Understanding how the disease spread and determining how undetected and undocumented cases contributed to its transmission will greatly improve their understanding of the size of that threat.
According to the government data seen by the Post, a 55 year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19 on November 17.
There are real reasons to be critical of the Chinese transparency early on as the disease was being understood, but misinformation isn't helpful.
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thesilentlinkin
26m
Yes. I think people have misunderstood what my comment was referring to.
China had a spate of illness due to unknown causes. They knew these existed in mid november (Maybe earlier). When they realised covid19 was an issue instead of saying 'hey we found this thing AND we have unexplained cases from before" they told the world these December cases where the beginning.
What this did was give a false impression over potential spread and other countries took inappropriately long times to make decisions over it.
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dragonelite
29m
Thanks, but that seems like a search toward patient zero, its only after having developed a test to confirm cases and doing autopsies on suspected cases.
But 266 unknown cases in november in a province of almost 60 million yeah that would most likely not ring a bell in any nation.
Also from the SCMP source: " Interviews with whistle-blowers from the medical community suggest Chinese doctors only realised they were dealing with a new disease in late December."
Its only late in December doctors thought something is not right.
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thesilentlinkin
24m
266 cases of an unknown virus causes massive alarm bells to ring, in particular in a post sars era.
EDIT - my bad on the confusion. I wasn't saying China knew covid19 was an issue in mid november, more that when they discovered covid19 in December they should have also mentioned these unknown illnesses discovered prior
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taylor_expansion
45m
That I think it’s more or less rumor. Any reputable source?
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Prime157
22m
They did ignore it. We knew China mishandled it BEFORE America's first case.
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VikingEsbjerg
36m
Right, but Trump was xenophobic when he put in place a travel ban from China.
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Whanksta
17m
If the "flu" came out of Saudi Arabia. Would Trump still place a travel ban?
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BrokenByLife
23m
Shhh, that doesn’t fit the narrative
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Fewwordsbetter
39m
..... not with Trump in charge.....
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hugoNL
1m
Well in fact, regardless who is in charge.
I really believe the USA, or any country for that matter, would've acted exactly the same as China did; regardless of which president.
Any country would attempt to quietely try to fix the problem at hand to prevent needed to go public with it in a feeble attempt to save face.
At what point do you really know for sure there is a potential for a dangerous pandemic? After a day? After a week? After a month?
If calling it out too early, thereby potentially being wrong, a lot of countries could end up crying wolf too early, thereby loosing credibility when feces really hits the ventilators.
It is very easy to point a finger -- yet it's all not as simple as it may seem.
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Sharkiex1838
1h
Well it's not like the US took the time to prepare for the pandemic as China was getting hit hard. China may have silenced him. The US would have ignored him.
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septeal
31m
the doc in washington got fired for criticizing too
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seanmonaghan1968
51m
I think this is fair. I mean it’s not like the world didn’t get to see all of this in January, but most countries didn’t shut their boarders then. Yes things should have gone differently but I think the world could have been far more proactive in closing boarders early
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neutrino46
40m
Absolutely agree
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Whanksta
40m
China locked down its cities and the world shrugged, so...
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thirtysixtyninety
15m
In every version of the timeline, the USA had a major head start to try to address this. And it was completely squandered by a feckless leader in Donald Trump who instead embraced the conspiracy theories and misinformation.
The second largest economy in the world just shut their economy down? His tweet: "Democrat Hoax". It's amazing how much of Fox News has been trying to rewrite this history and how successful he's been in rewriting the narrative to try to put all the blame on China without any responsibility for the USA's lack of preparedness.
Whether you use fudged China numbers or a real best scientific estimate, at the end of all this, the USA will have the highest body count of any country in the world. Rich, massive resources, a headstart...Poor leadership can squander all of that.
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Whanksta
13m
This half assed "social distancing" is going to get us all infected.
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FitAFJesus
16m
....after it was already out.
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achilleshy
1h
Timeline if you’re interested
2019-12-01 – a viral pneumonia patient with an unknown cause was hospitalized at Jinyintan Hospital. This patient was the earliest known case of 2019-nCoV infections. The patient did not have any exposure to Huanan Seafood Market.
2019-12-27 – Dr. Zhang Jixian, ICU doctor at Hubei Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, files report to Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on pneumonia patients with an unknown cause. Investigation opens shortly later.
2019-12-28 – three more patients arrives to the hospital, all of whom were related to Huanan Seafood Market.
2019-12-30 – Li Wenliang sent messages to private Wechat group about 7 cases of unknown virus, (wrongly) claiming it was SARS.
2019-12-30 – Notice issued and public health announcement made by Wuhan Municipal Health Committee of an unknown viral illness.
2019-12-31 – China receives genome results from commercial lab.
2019-12-31 – WHO is informed of mysterious pneumonia cases in Wuhan China with unknown cause. Wuhan City authorities put out public notice and is reported by CCTV and CGTN.
2020-01-01 – Seafood market shut down as potential cause of outbreak. Chinese researchers at the CCDC publish an article on suspected outbreak.
2020-01-03 – China reports a total of 44 suspected patients with the mystery disease.
2020-01-03 – National Health Commission classified the virus as a highly pathogenic virus, orders all labs to either destroy samples or transfer them to higher level labs. (cited as evidence of coverup such as by NY Post)
2020-01-09 – For the first time, Chinese labs confirm the existence of the new virus. Genetic sequencing work starts
2020-01-09 – China reports first death linked to Covid-19. A 61-year-old male in Wuhan with several underlying medical conditions.
2020-01-11- China shares the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus to international database.
2020-01-14 – WHO reports there is “limited human-to-human transmission between close contacts. WHO assesses that there was no clear evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. https://www.who.int/csr/don/14-january-2020-novel-coronavirus-thailand-ex-china/en/
2020-01-21 – WHO confirms human-to-human transmission of the virus.
2020-01-24 – China declares complete quarantine of Wuhan.