Coronavirus: Anger is growing at China over COVID-19 and its apparent cover-up attempt

[Chris F]

This is going to get interesting...

Coronavirus: Anger is growing at China over COVID-19 and its apparent cover-up attempt — Sky News

We've long known about the dangers of a wild animal virus leaping the species gap and ravaging humans and so have the Chinese.

apple.news

And according to reports this weekend, the British government has been told the Chinese may have lied about the extent of their own outbreak by a factor of 40.


Precious time was lost for other countries to prepare for the virus and when they did, it seems it was based on fudged figures and dodgy data.

I can see trump taking this really well.

 

[traadilooar]

If things get bad in America I can see the b52s heading to China.

 

[Steevo]

This is going to get interesting...

Coronavirus: Anger is growing at China over COVID-19 and its apparent cover-up attempt — Sky News

We've long known about the dangers of a wild animal virus leaping the species gap and ravaging humans and so have the Chinese.

apple.news

I can see trump taking this really well.

Similar info was circling over the weekend. Usually it's the Russians that decide to keep things quiet....

Michael Gove appears to blame China over lack of UK coronavirus testing

Minister says China was ‘not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness’ of virus

www.theguardian.com

 

[som farmer]

are we surprised ?
but we are reliant on china for a huge amount of manufactured parts etc, as farmers, world ag prices are influenced by china, buying, or not. They take a huge amount of lamb/beef from Aus and NZ, that could come here, if they stopped buying, milk products similar. But, who are we, to tell a major power, what they can, or cannot eat ? World trade has pretty well kept the peace, if countries turn more inwards, does that endanger that peace ? Also, in our brave new world of Brexit, a lot of effort has gone into increasing trade with china. A very careful path has to be walked, alas.

 

[Hindsight]

AZEEM IBRAHIM
China should write off debts to cover the cost of Covid-19

Azeem Ibrahim

Tuesday March 31 2020, 9.00am, The Times
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Despite Beijing’s determined efforts, a comprehensive timeline has now emerged of the response of the authorities in Hubei province and in Beijing to the spread of the Covid-19 virus, proving that the Chinese authorities engaged in a cover-up in the critical early days. This makes them morally responsible for the global consequences of the pandemic in at least some key ways.

China took the virus to be a public relations challenge, rather than a severe threat to human health. Doctors who tried to alert the authorities were told to keep quiet. Those who went public with their concerns were arrested. As if to confirm this observation, Beijing has since gone on to mount a global propaganda effort to deflect responsibility and somehow blame the United States for the breakout. The only thing that matters is that the Communist Party is not believed responsible for its early failures.


If the authorities had contained the situation in Hubei in the first three weeks of the breakout, this disease could probably have been completely contained within the province. But party bureaucrats made a different set of choices. As a consequence of those choices, the world is now at a standstill.
Nevertheless, China can do things to atone for its mistakes. So far, Beijing has sent support to embattled Italy in the form of medical experts, and it is sending out medical kits to the whole of Europe. Cynics have dismissed these gestures as little more than a PR exercise, in the same vein as China’s earlier responses to the virus. And they are probably right. But medical experts and more medical equipment are definitely helpful things to have, regardless of motivation. It is a good start.
Yet Europe is unlikely to be the region worst affected by this pandemic in the course of time. The most acutely affected will, inevitably, be smaller, poorer countries which do not have the health infrastructure and the economic resilience to weather to weather this global shock.

Many of these countries are already financially indebted to China, as Beijing has been using its growing economic might in recent years to invest and buy influence all over the world. Countries such as Djibouti, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Pakistan and Montenegro, have all been identified as already owing sums in excess of 45 per cent of their GDP to Beijing, largely in the form of debt towards Belt and Road projects.
Meanwhile, even countries such as the US and the UK have as much as a quarter of their government bonds owned by Chinese institutional investors closely associated with or even directly owned by the Chinese state.
For a real way to pay off its moral debts on the Covid-19 pandemic, China can start a programme of financial debt forgiveness to those countries affected by the virus. Priority should be given to those poorer countries who will not be able to pay off those debts anyway in the wake of the economic shock caused by the pandemic. Either China voluntarily forgives those debts, or default will happen anyway.
But Chinese ownership of sovereign debt is even more widespread than the virus. Italy owes China money, Spain does, everyone does. We should engage with Beijing to persuade them to waive the debts equivalent to the cost incurred by state budgets to handle the epidemic.
And if Beijing fails to heed this call, then it should be for the international community to come together and proclaim a proportional default on debts to China to pay for the fallout from Covid-19. By this agreement, perhaps underwritten by the IMF and the World Bank, we would proclaim than any such default would not hamper a country’s ability to seek credit on the open markets of the West.
Beijing has a moral obligation to forgive these debts. If it fails to do so, the rest of the world has a moral right to default. We may not have the capacity to force this on to China. But we do have the capacity, and the duty, to facilitate a co-ordinated default if it does not comply.
Dr Azeem Ibrahim is a director at the Center for Global Policy, Washington DC



A

 

[Farm buy]

Similar info was circling over the weekend. Usually it's the Russians that decide to keep things quiet....

Michael Gove appears to blame China over lack of UK coronavirus testing

Minister says China was ‘not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness’ of virus

www.theguardian.com

Similar info was circling over the weekend. Usually it's the Russians that decide to keep things quiet....

Michael Gove appears to blame China over lack of UK coronavirus testing

Minister says China was ‘not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness’ of virus

www.theguardian.com

Bad workman blames the tools. educate yourself Gove

 

[Scribus]

This is going to get interesting...

Coronavirus: Anger is growing at China over COVID-19 and its apparent cover-up attempt — Sky News

We've long known about the dangers of a wild animal virus leaping the species gap and ravaging humans and so have the Chinese.

apple.news

I can see trump taking this really well.

But haven't we been grandly informed just how trustworthy the Chinese stats and figures were? So what other untruths have been aired?

 

[DrWazzock]

I don’t understand how any body here could have been unaware of the seriousness of this virus in China from 1st january if you saw the tv reports. It was hardly a cover up.
And we then saw it spread to Italy.
And we did absolutely nothing to stop it arriving here.
It’s not our fault that it started in China buts our governments fault that it arrived here largely unchecked.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

US War Ships in trouble now ,

 

[Derrick Hughes]

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10218805370138189&id=1018885476

 

[Scribus]

US War Ships in trouble now ,

Have been for a while.

Unfortunately no matter how big or beautiful your weapons you can't shoot bugs.

 

[Farfrae]

Ah an article to try and weaponise the outbreak and demonize China that has not one scrap of evidence in it.

And why would the western media want to do that? Because China is developing fast and threatens, with it's new trade routes and alliances, the dominance of the world economy and the position of America and the dollar.

There are actually 3 theories going around as to how the virus originated including one that it was from an American weapons lab and was taken by visiting American soldiers to China during the 2019 Military World Games, officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games which was held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan.

No one will probably know the truth.

The fact is that China dealt efficiently with the outbreak and had it under control with excellent doctors and proper protective equipment (unlike the UK).

Various outbreaks of swine flu have originated in the USA but I haven't seen anyone writing articles about that. Nor about nor about how HIV ran rife in America in the early 1970's

It is simply racism, pure and simple.

 

[robs1]

Ah an article to try and weaponise the outbreak and demonize China that has not one scrap of evidence in it.

And why would the western media want to do that? Because China is developing fast and threatens, with it's new trade routes and alliances, the dominance of the world economy and the position of America and the dollar.

There are actually 3 theories going around as to how the virus originated including one that it was from an American weapons lab and was taken by visiting American soldiers to China during the 2019 Military World Games, officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games which was held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan.

No one will probably know the truth.

The fact is that China dealt efficiently with the outbreak and had it under control with excellent doctors and proper protective equipment (unlike the UK).

Various outbreaks of swine flu have originated in the USA but I haven't seen anyone writing articles about that. Nor about nor about how HIV ran rife in America in the early 1970's

It is simply racism, pure and simple.

Perhaps you should open your eyes a bit wider, no one knows the whole truth about how it started, how much the Chinese tried to cover it up etc etc,
Have a look at a face book clip from a chap called Danny lambo it's about burning pigs in China (allegedly)I have never seen any thing so disgusting in all my life

 

[som farmer]

Ah an article to try and weaponise the outbreak and demonize China that has not one scrap of evidence in it.

And why would the western media want to do that? Because China is developing fast and threatens, with it's new trade routes and alliances, the dominance of the world economy and the position of America and the dollar.

There are actually 3 theories going around as to how the virus originated including one that it was from an American weapons lab and was taken by visiting American soldiers to China during the 2019 Military World Games, officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games which was held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan.

No one will probably know the truth.

The fact is that China dealt efficiently with the outbreak and had it under control with excellent doctors and proper protective equipment (unlike the UK).

Various outbreaks of swine flu have originated in the USA but I haven't seen anyone writing articles about that. Nor about nor about how HIV ran rife in America in the early 1970's

It is simply racism, pure and simple.

if you think that china, with its densely packed population, only had 3500 deaths from this disease, following the big festival, where huge crowds congreate, traveling from all over china, to their 'home' towns, comparing that to Italy, where it is presumed it spread following a big football match, 11,000 +deaths, so far, you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

 

[gone up the hill]

Of course governments that have destroyed their economy's like we have for no good reason will try and deflect attention away from that to country's like China.

 

[traadilooar]

The CIA mi5 etc will know better than a few hics on a farm forum, but believe me if America gets hit bad and they have the slightest inkling the sh!t will hit the fan.

 

[beardface]

China undoubtedly covered up the real mortality rate of the virus, but to protect itself from its own people rather than to somehow hamstrung the rest of the world. There's talk of large numbers of urns, BUT people also need to factor in lock down associated deaths into the wild prediction of 4200 people dying in wuhan of the virus. Looking at Europe I'd say that roughly 3 to 4x as many people died of coronavirus in China than has been officially released.

The truth is we need more not less cooperation with countries like China to stop future outbreaks. Imagine if China were like north Korea. We wouldn't even of known about the virus until it had infected h as lf the world.

 

[Farfrae]

Imagine if China were like north Korea. We wouldn't even of known about the virus until it had infected h as lf the world.

And your knowledge of North Korea is exactly what? Your opinion based on reports from the mainstream media no doubt? The same mainstream media that told you Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that Libya was a threat.

 

[andyt87]

What's the bet that huge jump in numbers China put down to 'changing the way we diagnose' was the real figure and not the party line, otherwise why change it after a day

 

[Farfrae]

Of course governments that have destroyed their economy's like we have for no good reason will try and deflect attention away from that to country's like China.

Exactly.

There is quite a lot of evidence now building that Covid19 is not that serious.

On the 19th March 2020 (before the lockdown) the UK’s Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens downgraded the status of Covid 19 saying that COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK and that the mortality rate is low overall.

Read that again – the UK’s expert advisory body on pathogens has said that ‘the mortality rate is low’. We have more than likely just crashed the world economy, and make no mistake a massive recession and years of hardship will follow, whilst hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in the poorest countries will die as a direct result of this potential massive mistake.

All we needed to have done was isolate the vulnerable and to have invested properly in the NHS in the preceding years (rather than try and dismantle it for political reasons) so that it was equipped to deal with the crisis when it arose. It would have been way cheaper. The financial costs of this fiasco will be felt for a generation in the UK and many in the developing world who ‘live on the edge’ will die as a result.