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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday March 21 2020, @05:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the some-positive-news-for-a-change dept.

A new tweet from @CGTNOfficial China Global Television Network, or CGTN, is a multi-language, multi-platform media grouping. reports

#BREAKING#China reports 34 #COVID19 infections on Wednesday, all are cases that originated abroad, with 8 more deaths Chinese mainland reports zero new domestically transmitted #COVID19 cases


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @06:25AM (29 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @06:25AM (#973752)

    First they covered it up.

    Then once they couldn't hide it they moved their totalitarian control machine into overdrive.

    Now they're controlling the narrative, fudging the numbers (as they have all along), and hoping we all forget it was their attempts at a coverup which let this spread around the world. If they had admitted what was going on earlier instead of focusing on hiding it, they could have stopped it.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +3  
       Troll=2, Insightful=4, Informative=1, Overrated=1, Touché=1, Total=9
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Saturday March 21 2020, @06:45AM (9 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday March 21 2020, @06:45AM (#973754) Journal

    1. Expel Western journalists.
    2. Report no new cases.
    3. ???
    4. COUGH IT!

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:29AM (8 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:29AM (#973782) Journal

      We can believe China has resolved its Chinese coronavirus situation when their factories start working again.

      Even when they do, though, the rest of the world should stop buying what they make. China is a vulnerability and a threat. Let's hope everybody has gotten that key takeaway.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:54AM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:54AM (#973788) Journal

        I was looking up SBC stuff and found this anecdote:

        https://www.pine64.org/2020/03/15/march-update-manjaro-on-pinebook-pro-pinephone-software/ [pine64.org]

        COVID-19 recovery in China is underway and factory work is slowly returning back to normal. This is good news, and we hope to have a constant stream of updates for you in the coming weeks. That said, we’re taking it one step at a time, since factories are still at 20% of the normal manufacturing capacity and it’s hard to predict the recovery pace. So rather than offering you my guesstimates for particular device availability, we will make announcements once all stages of production are secured for each device. Frankly speaking, this also means that announcements will likely drop suddenly; so If you haven’t done so yet, this is probably the time to subscribe to this blog and be notified when it happens.

        Other sources are also saying that factories are coming back online:

        Coronavirus wreaks havoc on retail supply chains globally, even as China’s factories come back online [cnbc.com]

        “In the last week, pretty much all the factories [in China] are operational again,” Walter Kemmsies, managing director and economist for commercial real estate services firm JLL’s U.S. Ports, Airports and Global Infrastructure group, said in an interview on Thursday. “The problem is they are only at 50% to 75% capacity. ... The problem is [getting] truck drivers.”

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday March 21 2020, @01:48PM (1 child)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 21 2020, @01:48PM (#973819) Journal
        The funny thing is that we have evidence [soylentnews.org] that they are restarting the factories (sudden spikes in air pollution where you'd expect the spikes to be). This was spun as incinerators burning thousands of bodies.
        • (Score: 2) by driverless on Monday March 23 2020, @02:18AM

          by driverless (4770) on Monday March 23 2020, @02:18AM (#974288)

          Yeah, I saw that one too: Millions of Chinese are secretly dying and the government is covering it up and mass cremating the bodies. Meanwhile, for those of us not in la-la-land, factory production is starting up again and the pollution is returning.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @02:11PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @02:11PM (#973826)

        The question I wonder is how long will it take for us to get ahead of our Trump virus situation? I hope that people will still buy our goods because they shouldn't hold it against us for the negligence and inaction that came from the top.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @03:05PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @03:05PM (#973837)

          you can't get ahead of the trump virus. americans have proven that when they can be bothered to vote, they always vote against their best interests.

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday March 21 2020, @03:36PM

          by RS3 (6367) on Saturday March 21 2020, @03:36PM (#973847)

          Us? Who is "us"?? What country / group are you referring to?

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @02:34AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @02:34AM (#974005)

          Considering how much of the liberal media has been downplaying this virus since they first heard about it, the US was lucky to have elected Trump. Remember the media calling Trump racist for restricting arrivals from China? Or progressive mayor of Florence, Italy initiated "hug a Chinese" via Twitter account @DarioNardella on February 1st. Which country would you rather be in right now, progressive "hug a Chinese" Italy, or travel ban US?

          Follow @JackPosobiec if you want to escape your self imposed information bubble.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @07:08PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @07:08PM (#974198)

            Israeli doctor in Italy: We no longer help those over 60

            https://www.jpost.com/International/Israeli-doctor-in-Italy-We-no-longer-help-those-over-60-621856 [jpost.com]

            Israeli medical doctor Gai Peleg told Israeli television that in northern Italy the orders are not to allow those over 60 access to respiratory machines.

            Italy suffered more coronavirus-related victims than China with 4,825 confirmed deaths and 5,000 confirmed patients in the last 24 hours, Channel 12 reported on Sunday.

            Again, which country would you, and your parents and grandparents, want to be in right now? The one with the political party of travel bans or the one with hugs?

  • (Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @07:38AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @07:38AM (#973759)

    They got people, even here on soylentnews.org, calling it by awkward names. Somehow the idea is that Wuhan virus is racist. Wuhan isn't a race, nobody is complaining about "Chinese food", and look at all the other diseases named after locations: West Nile virus, Zika, Ebola, German measles, Marburg virus, Reston virus, Spanish flu.

    They had an official spreading the idea that the virus was a US military operation. We made our complaint to the ambassador, then Trump started calling it the Chinese virus. LOL.

    Legitimately though, the best name would be Wuhan lab virus. The lab in Wuhan has a history of modifying bat coronaviruses to replicate well in human cell culture lines. IMHO this research is insane. Why would you do that??? Oddly, staff at the lab have even published the research in English. They've published in Nature and in the ASM's Journal of Virology. The research goes back at least to 2006, and has been ongoing ever since. One of the things the Wuhan lab did to the bat coronaviruses is to add the ability to target the ACE2 receptor, which is present in humans. This is exactly what our pandemic is targeting. Thus, the most legitimate name is "Wuhan lab virus".

    BTW, this is NOT a "debunked" theory. China is pushing that idea, obviously. The claim is that the virus doesn't look human-designed. Well of course it doesn't. Adapting the bat virus to humans doesn't require a lot of intelligent design. You just shove the bat virus and a bunch of human viruses into cells, let the RNA get all mixed up, and you get what you want. It's the same way that viruses swap RNA in the wild, but with a bit of encouragement. Nobody should be demanding obvious signs of engineering. It's not as if the researchers are going to insert a copyright message and EULA into the RNA.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @08:51AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @08:51AM (#973767)

      Somehow the idea is that Wuhan virus is racist.

      Indeed it is. PSA: Stop using racist terminology! [babylonbee.com] Some acceptable terms are:

      • lung pao sicken
      • kung flu
      • winnie the flu
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:27AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:27AM (#973780)

      Extraordinary claims require ordinary references.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @08:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @08:42PM (#973921)

        Extraordinary references: Nature and in the ASM's Journal of Virology

        There's more than one. I looked over the research on my work computer, which isn't handy now. You can search as well as I can, I hope.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:47PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:47PM (#973806)
      Then I suppose you'd be alright with calling the 1918 Spanish Flu as the Kansas Flu, or the great American flu? The disease did not originate in Spain but in Kansas, but Spain was one of the few places that did not have wartime censorship in place at the time and as such was the first place to report its appearance. After all, we do need to accurately call things by where they come from right?
      • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @03:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @03:10PM (#973839)

        Your parents have the courtesy of naming you Cindy instead of, by your logic, the formally correct Under The Bleachers.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Saturday March 21 2020, @09:43AM (9 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 21 2020, @09:43AM (#973769) Journal

    I don't believe their claims to have leveled off the growth, let alone to have reduced it. If they had, the numbers would be verifiable.

    Instead, they have expelled all the journalists from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Domestically the CCP has been arresting and jailing anyone who writes about the epidemic and has deviated from the official Xinhua statements. Many others who have spoken out have also just plain been vanished [theguardian.com]. Because of that and the CCP's past history of doing the same, it looks like an ongoing cover up.

    So far the only country which appears to have come to grips with managing SARS-Cov-2 has been South Korea. It seems about to rip through the US and other third world nations.

    Locking down won't help in the long run and is exceptionally harmful to the economic activity which we have retooled the world to run on. Before SARS-Cov-2, aka the Wuhan virus, there where nations in economic recession. They are not going to turn around while everyone is locked up at home, no matter how much beer* everyone has stocked in advance. Maybe another retooling is in order to design a sustainable system not based on the fantasy of perpetual growth.

    * or beer-like fluids. </nods towards TMB>

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @09:55AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @09:55AM (#973772)

      OP here. Flattening the curve I've accepted as a valid strategy to avoid overwhelming the health care system. Most of the population will get this virus, its unavoidable. All we can do is ensure there may be a hospital bed for us in case we're one of the few that get critical when we get it.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Saturday March 21 2020, @10:04AM (1 child)

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 21 2020, @10:04AM (#973773) Journal

        Of course. Flattening the curve is about all that can be done in the short term, especially in the countries that lack medical infrastructure.

        It doesn't help that in some countries rather than manning up [salon.com] and running the nation those that have wormed their way into office use their position only for personal gain [jacobinmag.com]. Dealing with them will be a necessary precursor to any longer term solutions. Longer term, individual nations need to (re-)invest in infrastructure including health care. However, most, especially the CCP and the GOP, have turned the disaster into a politcal show, ignoring reality at every turn, and attacking those that call out the emporer for having no clothes.

        --
        Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @08:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @08:47PM (#973923)

          > ...attacking those that call out the emporer for having no clothes.

          I don't want to see the orange one naked, anything but that.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @02:26PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @02:26PM (#973831)

        All we can do is ensure there may be a hospital bed for us in case we're one of the few that get critical when we get it.

        Good luck with that. And by few you mean 10-20% of the population. So only 30,000,000 to 60,000,000 Americans. Just a few.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Saturday March 21 2020, @09:42PM

          by sjames (2882) on Saturday March 21 2020, @09:42PM (#973934) Journal

          That's where flattening the curve comes in. By slowing it's progress, the hope is that we won't have that many in need of the limited resources at the same time.

          Another useful feature is that the slower it goes, the more time we have to investigate a few promising treatments that could significantly reduce the number of people who get sick enough to need the ICU.

      • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday March 21 2020, @05:15PM

        by RS3 (6367) on Saturday March 21 2020, @05:15PM (#973874)

        > Most of the population will get this virus, its unavoidable.

        I've thought that too. And I think govt. / health officials see that as happening.

        It's all about time and timeline. If the disease spread can be slowed enough, the healthcare system is less overwhelmed and can handle the quantity of active cases. They call it "flattening the curve".

        In Italy people are dying who might have survived if there were more hospital beds, respirators, workers, etc., available.

        What I'm wondering about China: 1) I surely don't trust anything they're telling us. But 2) maybe essentially everyone in China has gotten COVID-19 and are either dead or over it now.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 21 2020, @01:50PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 21 2020, @01:50PM (#973820) Journal

      I don't believe their claims to have leveled off the growth, let alone to have reduced it. If they had, the numbers would be verifiable.

      Well, we'll see if they're still exporting sick people. That should be verifiable enough.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @02:24PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @02:24PM (#973830)

      Instead, they have expelled all the journalists from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

      Because US threw out their journalists first? Seriously, take a look in the fucking mirror.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/business/media/china-expels-american-journalists.html [nytimes.com]

      The announcement, made by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, came weeks after the Trump administration limited to 100 the number of Chinese citizens who can work in the United States for five state-run Chinese news organizations that are widely considered propaganda outlets.

      Funny, Trump doesn't seem to ban propaganda from the White House...

      Locking down won't help in the long run and is exceptionally harmful to the economic activity which we have retooled the world to run on

      Good luck America. You'll need it. Maybe 10,000,000-30,000,000 dead is what you need to wake up from your bullshit. Trump is not the president you need, but the one you deserve. And with a leadership like that, this will end with China-led world. Congrats.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/nyregion/new-jersey-family-coronavirus.html [nytimes.com]

      Coronavirus Ravages 7 Members of a Single Family, Killing 4

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @07:31PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @07:31PM (#974212)

        Trump has medical scientists by his side, ready to answer questions directly from reporters. Some of these reporters are pushing fear mongering. One might argue that he should kick the fear mongers out of the press briefings for the emotional well-being of the public, but he permits them to return. Citizens are expected to exercise discernment. Subjects of the ruling party are feed only the information that the political party wants them to hear. China censored their scientists who were alerting us to the problem back in December and January, and the Communist Party of China told the world that everything was fine, until their citizens were traveling to the rest of the world for the Chinese New Year. It seems to me like the rest of the world needs make a regime change happen in China for health of the whole world. The world should demand that China change to prevent this from happening again.

        In Italy, where progressive politicians were more concerned with racism than with public health, a larger percentage of the population is dying, partly due to the political party asking strangers to hug other strangers who might have traveled from China recently. In the United States, the progressive media underplayed the severity of the virus, called Trump racist for adding China to the travel ban for protecting public health. Which country would you rather be in right now? Elections have consequences, and it is obvious that the United States choose wisely in 2016. Its only wise choice is to reelect Trump in 2020.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:20AM (#973778)

    WHO too [dailycaller.com]. Harold Shipman had nothing on Dr Tedros.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @04:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @04:18PM (#973861)

    Yes,

    1. China covered it up
    2. China fully mobilized against the virus spread, with mandatory lockdowns, full hazmat suits for medical workers, etc. Those who were involved in the coverup were removed from their positions / punished.
    3. China which does not have socialized medicine, finally made treatment of COVID-19 free. There was a really sad blog post by a Chinese doctor in Wuhan telling of a pregnant woman who's family had already spent $35,000 on her treatment having the plug pulled on her two days before the announcement of free medical care. Yes, China has a barbaric medical system like the US.
    4. China tested the fuck out of the population, and isolated just those who were ill, as they returned folks to work. And, everybody wears masks, tries to maintain a small distance from others, etc.
    5. China's new cases are all cases from repatriated folks -- totally believable, since they actual pulled out all the stops to stop the spread of the virus.

    .
    .

    1. The US president gutted the U.S.'s pandemic response group, and moved the US strategic pharmaceutical reserve to a government department that is not competent to manage it. He also eliminated the group that looks for outbreaks of novel diseases anywhere in the world, as an early warning system so we can *avoid* a pandemic by responding early.
    2. The US president pretended that all was well, and even stated that the virus was a hoax.
    3. The US lied about mask wearing being ineffective to try to keep limited supplies available for medical workers. Even primitive masks are effective in reducing spread, if worn by the infected individual, and surgical (not N95) masks have proven effective in protecting medical teams in S. Korea and Taiwan (where they did not go full hazmat suit with N95 masks and goggles like China did, but have had no transmission to health care workers).
    4. The US president got worried as the stock market fell, and tried to infuse a ton of money, but did nothing to help stop the spread, nor help those who were ill.
    5. More money to try to shore up equities.
    6. More money to try to shore up equities.
    7. Pinky finger to mouth.... Hmmmm, perfect opportunity to destroy Social Security, he he he. We will have a payroll tax holiday, so we can do nothing for folks who are now unemployed, and do nothing to help folks pay for treatment, and do nothing to help slow the spread of the disease... But, we will give a big chunk of money away to those with high incomes, AND we will be able to claim SS is insolvent later, and finally kill all those poor grandmas we've always fantasized about killing. he he he.
    8. We will have a partial lockdown of the borders, but still allow folks from countries led by far-right political allies, even if they are hotbeds of the disease.
    9. Hospitals in the hardest hit areas of the US are reporting that they have run out of supplies, and have teams making things like homemade surgical masks.
    10. No testing to speak of yet, but the US did dispatch 500,000 test kits from Italy on a navy ship, to distribute.
    11. A few US states take some actions to slow the spread.
    12. Still no widespread testing, and no action from the federal government other than assigning two navy hospital ships to areas of large outbreaks on the request of the governors of California and New York.
    13. US President orders factories to produce medical supplies under wartime rules. A little concerning when noting this presidents admiration of authoritarian dictators. But, hey, it is something.
    14. Some cognitively challenged Americans still believe the imbecile in the white house, when he said that COVID-19 was a hoax, or at least nothing to worry about, and are going about their lives as if nothing is happening--spreading the illness. The US is currently seeing case counts double every 4 - 6 days, and it is rocketing up on the COVID-19 infection rate scoreboard.

    .

    We have incompetent morons leading our nation who only dream of wealth and power. China has the same sort of power/wealth hungry scumbags leading their country, but at least their scumbag elites are intelligent and competent.

    TLDR, I believe it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @08:32AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2020, @08:32AM (#974060)

    You're right on all counts.. but I'm curious though, even if they didn't cover it up I seriously don't think it would have change anything. Pretty much the rest of the world was sitting on their arses and doing nothing even after the cat's out of the bag. The fucking WHO was more busy about semantics and image. Even the last couple weeks we see governments not doing shit until the infection/death count starting shooting up, some were more worried about the economic fall out than the health impact so didn't want to shit until the body bag starting piling up.

    About the only thing that would have mattered is the timeline for the vaccine had China cooperated early and help reduce the timeline. And yea China needs to take fucking responsibility but the won't - they won't even admit it is technically correct to call it the China Virus.