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Leaked documents show China mishandled early COVID-19 pandemic: report
Leaked documents from China show the country mishandled the early COVID-19 pandemic through misleading public data and three-week delays in test results, CNN reported Monday.
A whistleblower, who worked in the Chinese health care system, provided 117 pages of internal documents from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to CNN.
The files, which CNN had verified by six experts, showed how the region struggled to manage the coronavirus between October 2019 and April 2020 – a critical time period in which the virus spread from China to cause a worldwide pandemic.
[2020-12-01 23:22:03 UTC; Ed. update follows.]
The referenced CNN article is nearly 5,000 words long. In addition there are numerous graphs and graphics. I strongly encourage the community to read the entire article before drawing any conclusions or making comments. Here are some excerpts taken from near the end of the article:
It is not clear to what extent the central government was aware of the actions taking place in Hubei at that time, or how much information was being shared and with whom. The documents offer no indication that authorities in Beijing were directing the local decision-making process. However, Mertha, the JHU academic, said the mismatch between the higher internal and lower public figures on the February death toll "appeared to be a deception, for unsurprising reasons."
"China had an image to protect internationally, and lower-ranking officials had a clear incentive to under-report -- or to show their superiors that they were under-reporting -- to outside eyes," he said.
Conversely, however, the leaked documents also provide something of a defense of China's overall handling of the virus. The reports show that in the early stages of the pandemic, China faced the same problems of accounting, testing, and diagnosis that still haunt many Western democracies even now -- issues compounded by Hubei encountering an entirely new virus.
[...] China and its healthcare workers were under immense strain as the outbreak took hold, said Yang, from the Council of Foreign Relations.
"They had a massive run on the medical system. They were overwhelmed. There was truly despair among medical professionals by the end of January, because they were extremely overworked and they were also enormously discouraged by the high number of deaths that were occurring with a disease they had not treated previously," he added.
Hubei, which lags far behind Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese administrative divisions in terms of GDP per capita, was the first region to confront a virus that would go on to confound many of the world's most powerful countries.
Schaffner, from Vanderbilt University, said many of the comments in the documents might have been made in the US, "where, over the past 15 to 20 years, at particularly the state and the local level, public health funding has become constrained."
The documents show health care officials had no comprehension as to the magnitude of the impending disaster.
[...] Tuesday marks exactly 12 months since the first patient in Wuhan started showing symptoms, according to the Lancet study.
Lastly, there are likely to be strong feelings about the situation; I strongly encourage folk to try and keep things civil. Let one's anger be directed at the disease; not at fellow Soylentils. We are all struggling to various degrees to make sense of these highly disturbed circumstances. Please wear a mask, maintain physical distancing, and maintain proper hand washing practices. I can attest these practices help; I live in a state with one of the lowest rates of infection and death in the US. Even with that, I have a friend who was hospitalized for a couple weeks with COVID-19 and of a couple more acquaintances who have lost loved ones to this pandemic. There are the occasional exceptions, and I know people are growing tired and just want things to go back to normal. It is all the more important to do what we can to reduce the spread of this disease. --martyb
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @11:57AM (5 children)
Imagine believing telling people not to see their families for a year is reasonable policy. Imagine thinking giving up your rights this year means you'll be given them back next year. Next Thanksgiving your grandmother will be one year older and you still won't be allowed to see her, assuming she had another year left to begin with. I hope last year's celebrations were special at least. If she dies at the hands of the police you might be allowed a funeral.
You people are modern day abstinence-only educators. How many more months of your ideas not working anywhere not a remote island do we need to go through?
(Score: 3) by c0lo on Wednesday December 02 2020, @12:25PM (4 children)
The worst that Australia had was about 160 days in strict isolation, and this was the Victoria/Melbourne case. Incidentally, this is were I live.
Now, imagine South Korea, which didn't have a strict lockdown until now [wikipedia.org], so the people could see their family.
I don't need to imagine, I already have my rights restored now and I can enjoy them without fear that I may kill someone doing it.
I no longer have grandparents, but I do have parents in the age bracket.
I brought my parents with me, so my isolation was their isolation, can you imagine that?
And they'll continue to live with me, they're already too old to let them live without support.
Well, mate, there seems to be a problem with the police in your country. Maybe it's time to start working on it.
There are a number of countries not on a remote island where they managed to do it. Maybe start looking how they made and make it work before declaring the impossibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @02:39PM
Weren't there several instances of police brutality in the last few months due to lockdown? Something about ripping people from their cars, running a man over and stomping on his head, forcing their way into a woman's home and arresting her over Facebook posts?
Enjoy your summer, you're a fool if you think this isn't an annual event. If we could cure diseases with lockdowns and masks we would have done it long before 2020. Have fun next flu season.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @02:42PM (2 children)
What do you think Peru did wrong? They're still locked down, 8 months later, and have one of the worst global fatality rates.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 02 2020, @10:52PM
Didn't respect the epidemiological countermeasures. That or they installed to much 5G. Which one do you think is more plausible?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday December 03 2020, @01:01AM
What's gone wrong in Peru: [bbc.com]
queuing at banks and at markets (both 'essential', but without social distancing, there has been huge amount of infection)
many people living together - not just multi-generational housing, but multi-family houses (ie, shacks)
Parts of rural Peru doesn't have clean water [water.org] or sanitation [waterforpeople.org]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex